SPEECH 


OF 


HON.  JACOB  COLLAMER,  OF  VERMONT, 


ON 


THE  ACQUISITION  OF  CUBA; 


DELIVERED 


IN  THE  SENATE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES,  FEBRUARY  21,  1859s.- 


WASHINGTON: 

PRINTED  AT  THE  CONGRESSIONAL  GLOBE  OFFICE. 

1859. 


SPEECH. 


The  Senate,  as  in  Committee  of  the  Whole,  having  re¬ 
sumed  the  consideration  of  the  bill  making  appropriation  to 
facilitate  the  acquisition  of  the  Island  of  Cuba  by  negotia¬ 
tion — 

Mr.  COLLAMER  said: 

Mr.  President:  It  has  appeared  to  me  that 
this  bill,  with  the  necessary  consequences  which 
are  involved  in  it,  and  the  policy  which  it  initi¬ 
ates,  is  the  most  important  measure  that  has  ever 
been  presented  to  the  consideration  of  Congress 
since  I  have  had  any  connection  with  it  in  either 
House.  It  is  not  so  much  the  mere  proposition 
to  purchase  Cuba;  that  is  but  a  single  step;  but, 
as  I  have  said,  the  policy  which  it  involves,  the 
great  ultimate  projects  which  necessarily  lie  be¬ 
hind  it,  and  which  follow  in  its  train  when  that 
step  is  once  taken,  make  up  the  importance  of 
the  measure. 

Our  policy  in  relation  to  Cuba  has  certainly 
been  a  very  uniform  one,  so  far  as  the  public  have 
known  it;  and  the  first  thing  that  strikes  the  mind 
in  this  measure,  is,  that  jt  is  proposed  entirely  to 
change  that  policy.  I  say  our  policy  has  been 
clear  and  distinct  and  uniform,  so  far,  at  least,  as 
the  public  have  known  it.  I  feel,  Mr.  President, 
that  I  ought  to  verify  this  assertion;  and  I  there¬ 
fore  desire  now  to  refer  to  the  different  expres¬ 
sions  of  our  Government,  at  different  periods, 
when  thismatter  has  been  the  topic  of  negotiation. 
Mr.  Clay,  during  the  administration  of  Mr.  Ad¬ 
ams,  states  it  thus: 

“The  United  States  are  satisfied  with  the  present  condi¬ 
tion  of  those  islands  (Cuba  and  Porto  Rico)  in  the  hands  of 
Spain,  and  with  their  ports  open  to  our  commerce,  as  they 
are  now  open.  This  Government  desires  no  political  change 
of  that  condition.” 

Mr.  Van  Buren,  in  writing  to  Mr.  Van  Ness 
under  General  Jackson’s  administration,  says: 

“  Your  general  instructions  are  full  upon  the  subject  of 
the  interest  which  the  United  States  take  in  the  fate  of 
those  islands,  (Cuba  and  Porto  Rico,)  and  particularly  of 
the  former;  they  inform  you  that  we  are  content  that  Cuba 
should  remain  as  it  now  is,  but  could  not  consent  to  its 
transfer  to  any  European  Power.” 

Mr.  Buchanan,  under  President  Polk,  says,  in 
his  letter  to  Mr.  Saunders,  our  Minister  to  Spain: 

“  You  might  assure  him  [the  Spanish  Minister  for  For¬ 


eign  Affairs]  that,  whilst  the  Government  is  entirely  satis¬ 
fied  that  Cuba  shall  remain  under  the  dominion  of  Spain, 
we  should  in  any  event  resist  its  acquisition  by  any  other 
nation.” 

Mr.  Everett,  in  his  letter  of  December  1,1852, 
says: 

“  A  respectful  sympathy  with  the  fortunes  of  an  ancient 
ally  and  a  gallant  people,  with  whom  the  United  States 
have  ever  maintained  the  most  friendly  relations,  would,  if 
no  other  reason  existed,  make  it  our  duty  to  leave  her  in  the 
undisturbed  possession  of  this  little  remnant  of  her  mighty 
transatlantic  empire.” 

Here,  then,  we  have  the  expression  of  opinion 
from  the  accession  of  the  younger  Adams  down 
to  the  last  President, *one  uniform  expression  of 
opinion,  that  this  country  is  perfectly  content  that 
Cuba  should  remain  in  the  possession  of  Spain, 
and  will  not  interfere  in  regard  to  it,  unless  it  is 
attempted  to  be  transferred  to  some  other  coun¬ 
try.  It  appears  to  me  that  there  should  be  shown 
to  us  some  occasion,  some  new  cause,  some  in¬ 
tervening  subject-matter,  which  has  arisen  to 
change  our  national  policy.  The  President  says 
he  has  had  no  communication  with  Spain  on  the 
subject;  he  has  nothing  new  to  lay  before  us;  he 
has  no  new  matter  to  present.  Of  course,  then,  it 
follows  that  what  we  are  now  called  upon  to  do, 
is  ~to  do  the  very  thing  which  we  have  assured 
Spain  and  the  world  over  and  over  again  it  was 
not  our  policy  to  entertain. 

The  proposition  for  the  acquisition  of  Cuba  is 
presented  to  our  attention  in  the  message  of  the 
President,  and  in  the  report  of  the  Committee  on 
Foreign  Relations  which  accompanies  this  bill. 
We  have  in  this  report,  I  take  it,  the  great  prin¬ 
ciple,  the  substratum  on  which  it  is  claimed  we 
should  enter  upon  this  policy.  Now,  what  is  it  ? 
It  all  lies  in  a  very  narrow  compass,  and  is  this. 

I  read  from  page  9  of  the  report: 

“  The  law  of  our  national  existence  is  growth.  We  can¬ 
not,  if  vve  would,  disobey  it.  While  we  should  do  nothing 
to  stimulate  it  unnaturally,  we  should  be  careful  not  to  im¬ 
pose  upon  ourselves  a  regimen  so  strict  as  to  prevent  its 
healthful  development.  The  tendency  of  the  age  is  the  ex¬ 
pansion  of  the  great  Powers  of  the  world.  England,  France, 
and  Russia,  all  demonstrate  the  existence  of  this  pervading 
principle.  Their  growth,  it  is  true,  only  operates  by  the  ab¬ 
sorption,  partial  or  total,  of  weaker  Powers— generally  of 


4 


inferior  races.  So  long  as  this  extension  of  territory  is  the 
result  of  geographical  position,  a  higher  civilization,  and 
greater  aptitude  for  government,  and  is  not  pursued  in  a  di¬ 
rection  to  endanger  our  safety'or  impede  our  progress.  we 
have  neither  the  right  nor  the  disposition  to  find  fault  with 
it.  Let  England  pursue  her  march  of  conquest  and  annex¬ 
ation  in  India,  France  extend  her  dominions  on  the  south¬ 
ern  shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  advance  her  frontiers 
to  the  Rhine,  or  Russia  subjugate  her  barbarous  neighbors 
in  Asia;  we  shall  look  upon  their  progress,  if  not  with  fa¬ 
vor,  at  least  with  indifference.  VVe  claim  on  this  hemis¬ 
phere  the  same  privilege  that  they  exercise  on  the  other — 
‘  Hanc  veniam  petimusque  damusque  vicissim.’ 

In  this  they  are  but  obeying  the  laws  of  their  organiza¬ 
tion.  When  they  cease  to  grow,  they  will  soon  commence 
that  period  of  decadence  which  is  the  fate  of  all  nations  as 
of  individual  man.” 

There  is  the  great  principle  enunciated  in  a 
very  well  chosen  form  of  expression;  and  what 
is  it?  It  is  that  great  nations  must  increase  in 
their  territorial  extent:  that  they  do  it;  that  France, 
England,  Russia  do  it,  and  do  it  how?  Doit  by 
Conquest,  do  it  by  force;  and  what  is  claimed  here 
is  that  we  must  do  it  for  the  same  cause;  that  is, 
that  when  we  cease  to  increase  in  territory  we 
shall  commence  our  decadence;  that  it  is  the  law 
of  national  existence  and  that  we  shall  do  it,  too, 
as  they  do  it,  because  not  only  their  acquisition, 
but  the  manner  of  that  acquisition  is  here  quoted 
with  approbation  and  as  worthy  of  our  imitation; 
for  the  report  says: 

“  We  claim  on  this  hemisphere  the  same  privilege  that 
they  exercise  on  the  other.” 

That  is,  the  privilege  of  extending  our  territory 
by  arms  and  by  force: 

t£  In  this  they  are  but  obeying  the  laws  of  their  organiza¬ 
tion.  When  they  cease  to  grow,  they  will  soon  commence 
that  period  of  decadence  which  is  the  fate  of  all  nations.” 

There  is  laid  down  the  broad  principle,  the 
substratum  of  the  course  of  national  policy,  which 
we  are  asked  now  to  initiate  by  the  passage  of 
this  bill.  It  needs  very  few  words  to  explain  or 
enlarge  on  these  views.  They  certainly  are  very 
clear;  they  are  very  distinct;  and  the  question 
now  is,  will  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  in¬ 
dorse  them  by  the  passage  of  this  bill?  because 
that  is  but  an  initiatory  step  in  this  policy.  It 
here  becomes  me,  in  the  first  place,  to  say  that  I 
utterly  deny,  I  entirely  take  issue  with,  the  first 
principle  laid  down  in  this  proposition.  I  deny 
that  it  is  a  law  of  national  progress  and  improve¬ 
ment  that  a  nation  must  extend  its  territory. 
That  entirely  depends  on  how  much  it  has  al¬ 
ready,  and  how  far  that  which  it  has  is  adapted 
to  its  wants.  If  it  is  true,  that  when  a  nation 
ceases  to  extend  its  territory  its  decadence  com¬ 
mences,  it  must  be  on  the  ground  that  this  people 
and  this  nation  are  utterly  incapable  of  any  prog¬ 
ress  in  the  way  of  maturity;  that  they  are  utterly 
incapable  of  any  progress  by  way  of  improve¬ 
ment  on  what  they  already  possess.  It  goes  upon 
the  ground  that  nothing  can  be  gained  to  the 
nation;  that  it  can  make  no  progress  in  national 
grandeur  and  greatness  and  power,  unless  it 
steals  from  its  neighbors.  1  utterly  deny  that 
there  is  any  such  principle  of  national  growth.  A 
nation  may  grow  in  lumbers,  in  wealth,  in  civil¬ 
ization,  may  grow  for  centuries,  and  never  en¬ 
large  its  territories  one  inch.  The  commandment 
of  God  to  the  family  of  men  that  they  should  go 
forth,  multiply,  and  replenish  the  earth,  and  sub¬ 
due  it,  that  is  cultivate  it,  applies  with  equal 
force  to  a  nation  like  ours.  Improve  what  you 
have,  multiply  and  replenish,  and  subdue  your 


country.  That  word  “subdue”  is  not  a  com¬ 
mandment  to  filibuster  against  your  neighbors. 

But,  Mr.  President,  it, will  become  us  to  con¬ 
sider  whether  there  is  not  a  very  broad  mark  of 
difference  between  the  political  condition  of  our 
country  and  those  countries  which  are  cited  to  us 
here  as  examples  worthy  of  imitation.  What 
use  do  England  and  France  and  Russia  make  of 
their  conquests  of  the  countries  which  they  sub¬ 
due  abroad?  What  do  they  want  them  for ?  Take 
England,  with  which  we  are  most  acquainted: 
they  subdue  a  country,  take  possession  of  it,  and 
occupy  it,  what  for?  For  a  colony;  for  a  colo¬ 
nial  dependency,  forever  to  be  holden  in  a  condi¬ 
tion  of  colonial  dependence;  to  be  subsidized  to 
their  own  use;  to  be  the  hewers  of  wood  and  the 
bearers  of  burdens  for  the  country  at  home.  Those 
colonies  have  no  participation  in  the  Government 
of  England  itself.  They  never  have  any  partici¬ 
pation  in  the  laws,  the  regulations,  the  proceed¬ 
ings  for  the  administration  of  the  home  Govern¬ 
ment  and  the  shaping  of  the  destinies  of  the 
mother  country,  England;  and  they  never  are  to 
have  any  participation.  But  how  is  it  with  us? 
Can  we  hold  colonies?  In  the  very  much  noted 
Dred  Scott  decision,  in  which  certainly  there  are 
some  general  principles  announced  that  we  may 
agree  in,  though  not  in  all  the  particulars,  the 
Supreme  Court  say: 

“  There  is  certainly  no  power  given  by  the  Constitution 
to  the  Federal  Government  to  establish  or  maintain  colonies 
bordering  on  the  United  States  or  at  a  distance,  to  be  ruled 
and  governed  by  the  pleasure  of  Congress.” 

This  is  more  fully  repeated  and  enlarged  upon 
in  another  part  of  the  decision  which  I  shall  not 
take  time  now  to  read;  but  clear  it  is,  that  we  have 
no  power  to  obtain  colonies  near  to  us,  and  at  a 
distance,  and  to  retain  them  and  govern  them  as 
colonies,  as  dependencies.  Whatever  country 
we  take  becomes  a  part  of  our  own.  It  must,  as 
soon  as  its  population  and  condition  will  permit, 
be  represented.  It  is  to  be  received  as  an  integral 
part  of  our  Government,  to  contribute  to  the  form¬ 
ation  of  our  own  institutions,  to  the  molding  of 
our  national  affairs,  to  have  an  equal  participation 
in  everything  that  is  done  by  this  Government. 
While  other  nations,  by  foreign  conquests,  obtain 
colonies  which  may  be  serviceable  to  them,  we 
can  never  do  so.  All  that  can  ever  be  of  any  ser¬ 
vice  to  us  is  to  obtain  territory  adjoining  our  own 
which  we  may  incorporate  into  our  own  national 
Government,  into  which  we  can  march  our  mil¬ 
itia,  or  our  Army,  to  defend  and  maintain  them, 
and  from  which  they  can  march  to  us  for  the  same 
purpose. 

Another  thing:  the  manner  in  which  they  ob¬ 
tain  these  foreign  countries  is  entirely  unadapted 
to  our  condition.  As  this  report  says  and  ap¬ 
proves,  they  obtain  them  by  conquest,  and  it  is 
claimed  that  we  are  to  exercise  the  same  power 
on  this  continent.  Now,  sir,  we  go  upon  the 
ground  that  ours  is  a  popular  system  of  govern¬ 
ment;  that  it  is  the  government  of  the  people’s 
own  choice.  Therefore,  to  obtain  a  foreign  coun¬ 
try,  even  if  you  annex  it  to  this,  against  the  will 
and  pleasure  of  its  people,  to  obtain  it  by  fraud  or 
by  force,  is  as  inconsistent  with  the  principle  or 
our  Government  as  it  is  to  attempt  to  propagate 
Christianity  by  the  sword.  Do  you  suffer  that 
people  to  have  the  choice  of  their  own  govern¬ 
ment  if  you  pursue  this  policy?  Clearly, notatall. 


5 


I  have  thought  it  proper  to  call  attention  to 
these  two  leading  features,  attempting  to  show 
that  what  the  committee  approve  of,  and  lay¬ 
down  as  the  basis  of  the  policy  which  this  Gov¬ 
ernment  is  to  initiate  by  this  bill,  is  a  policy  ut¬ 
terly  inconsistent  with  the  whole  framework  of 
our  Government.  That  is,  the  obtaining,  by 
conquest  and  by  force,  foreign  acquisitions. 

Besides,  Mr.  President,  the  obtaining  of  a  coun¬ 
try  not  bordering  on  our  own,  into  which  we  can¬ 
not  march  our  armies  to  protect  them,  and  when 
they  cannot  contribute  to  our  protection,  neces¬ 
sarily  implies  that  the  nation  which  attempts  to 
make  such  conquests,  and  hold  such  colonies, 
must  always  have  a  large  standing  army  and  a 
large  and  powerful  fleet.  England  may  hold  col¬ 
onies  at  any  distance  from  home.  She  has  a  fleet 
to  hold  intercourse  with  them,  to  send  to  them  to 
protect  them  against  invasion .  She  has  an  army 
which  she  can  transport  by  her  fleet,  and  put  in 
a  position  to  hold  and  to  defend  any  colony  of 
which  they  may  choose  to  take  possession.  That 
is  all  contrary  to  our  institutions.  We  have  no 
large  armv,  and  we  expect  none;  and  we  desire 
to  avoid  all  that  policy  which  shall  require  one. 
In  the  ne?a  place,  we  have  no  great  and  exten¬ 
sive  and  powerful  navy.  We  expect  none,  and 
we  are  opposed  to  any  policy  which  shall  require 
us  to  have  one.  Both  these  things  will  be  neces¬ 
sary,  however,  when  this  policy  of  foreign  ac¬ 
quisition  is  once  entered  upon. 

Mr.  President,  I  think  it  cannot  be  disguised 
that  the  undertaking  to  entertain  a  policy  of  this 
kind  seems  to  be  based  upon  the  notion  that  our 
people  have  a  certain  voracity  for  obtaining  land 
and  country,  which  is  utterly  irresistible  and  un¬ 
controllable.  This  has  been  designated  by  high- 
sounding  names;  it  is  said  to  be  an  infirmity  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  family.  I  do  not  know  that  it  is 
peculiar  to  them.  1  am  sensible  that  our  people 
have  a  great  desire  for  land,  but  they  want  it  to 
be  pretty  good  soil  and  such  as  they  can  use  them¬ 
selves.  I  have  thought  that  one  of  the  most  pow¬ 
erful  reproaches  of  that  sort  of  feeling  was  found 
in  an  incident  recited  in  Stone’s  life  of  Rrandt. 
Our  people  would  go  beyond  the  Ohio  against  the 
Indians.  The  Indians  thought,  after  our  treaty 
with  England,  that  we  had  no  right  beyond  the 
Ohio,  without  a  treaty  with  them.  Our  people 
would  go  there.  They  went  there  from  all  quar¬ 
ters  of  the  country,  and  got  into  a  controversy 
with  the  Indians.  They  had  a  severe  Indian  war, 
and  they  penetrated  at  one  time,  under  General 
St.  Clair,  pretty  far  into  the  Indian  country.  They 
encountered  the  Indians  there,  and  were  most 
fatally  defeated.  They  fled  from  the  field  and  left 
large  numbers  on  the  ground.  When  a  few  days 
afterwards  they  returned  to  bury  their  dead,  they 
found  the  mouths  of  all  those  dead  people  stuffed 
full  of  earth,  saying  in  the  symbolic  language  of 
the  Indians,  “  you  would  have  earth;  take  your 
fill  of  it.”  It  is  supposed  that  this  great  desire  for 
obtaining  land  is  so  uncontrollable  and  so  vora¬ 
cious,  that  you  iiave  nothing  to  do  but  present  a 
project  to  obtain  land,  and  it  is  totally  immaterial 
with  what  it  is  encumbered,  it  is  totally  immaterial 
where  it  is  situated,  the  blind  avidity  of  this  peo¬ 
ple  is  such  that  they  can  be  made  to  swallow  it 
without  discrimination;  and  the  proposition  is 
presented  to  them  much  as  if  they  were  like  the 
ostrich,  or  like  the  shark  following  a  ship,  to 


which  you  can  throw  even  a  hot  stone,  no  mat¬ 
ter  whether  it  is  digestible  or  not,  they  will  swal¬ 
low  it.  I  do  not  believe  that  this  presumption  upon 
the  voracity  of  our  people  in  relation  to  land,  on 
account  of  their  supposed  indiscrimination  and 
blind  proceeding,  is  well  founded.  I  believe  the 
people  of  this  country,  notwithstanding  all  their 
desire  for  land,  are  capable  of  understanding 
whether  what  is  now  presented  to  them  is  adapted 
to  their  wants,  and  to  reject  it  if  it  is  not. 

If  we  search  the  history  of  our  country  for 
manifestations  of  the  disposition  of  this  nation 
upon  thaP  topic,  I  think  I  shall  be  fully  borne  out 
in  my  presumption  that  their  proceedings  have 
been  conducted  with  great  discrimination,  and 
they  have  obtained  only  such  acquisitions  as  were 
adapted  to  their  wants.  What  have  they  been  ? 
The  first  was  the  obtaining  of  Louisiana.  What 
was  it  ?  Almost  a  million  square  miles  of  country, 
about  one  third  of  all  weown  now,  almost  utterly 
uninhabited,  with  only  a  French  settlement  down 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi,  and  here  and 
there  a  scattered  Indian  post.  It  was  a  territory 
adjoining  to  ourselves;  it  was  an  extensive  region 
of  country,  of  great  fertility,  exactly  adapted  to 
the  wants  of  our  people,  open  to  their  settlement. 
The  small  French  settlement  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Mississippi,  though  it  might  be  regarded  as  a 
slight  incumbrance,  being  composed  of  people 
who  were  foreigners  to  us,  was  so  slight  as  to  be 
a  matter  of  very  little  or  no  consideration.  It  was 
clearly  seen  that  when  that  country  was  settled  • 
up  to  any  considerable  extent,  it  would  be  Amer¬ 
icanized;  whatever  French  population  there  was 
would  disappear  in  the  progress  of  our  own  fam¬ 
ily.  Besides,  there  was  a  large  and  extensive 
tract  of  fertile,  country  with  which  to  replace  in 
the  Treasury  ten  times  over  the  money  we  paid. 
Did  that  purchase  manifest  any  want  of  discrim¬ 
ination  in  what  ou  rpeople  were  buying,  as  adapted 
to  their  wants?  Certainly  not  at  all.  Was  it  not 
a  country  into  which  our  people  could  go,  and 
carry  with  them  and  build  up  and  promote  all  the 
institutions  of  our  own  land — a  country,  too,  no^ 
only  into  which  they  might  go,  but  into  which 
they  must  go,  and  expected  'to  go,  as  they  have 
gone,  carrying  with  them  their  wives  and  their 
little  ones,  their  household  gods  and  all  their  in¬ 
stitutions,  and  there  building  up,  all  over  its  sur¬ 
face,  their  churches,  their  school-houses,  and 
their  court-houses,  in  which  they  aid  in  adminis¬ 
tering  those  laws  which  they  have  participated  in 
making  ? 

What  was  the  next?  We  obtained  Florida,  a 
large  country,  with  a  small,  scattered  Spanish 
population.  I  am  sensible  that  in  regard  to  Flor¬ 
ida,  and  its  resources  and  fertility,  there  has  bedn 
a  great  deal  of  disappointment  at  almost  all  ages. 
In  1762,  our  people  went  and  took  possession  of 
Cuba;  and  four  thousand  of  the  troops  who  weht 
there,  in  what  was  called  the  old  French  war, 
went  from  New  England;  and  they  conquered  the 
country,  and  took  possession  of  Havana.  The 
very  next  year  England  surrendered  it  to  Spain, 
in  exchange  for  Florida;  for  all  the  golden  drearhs 
of  Florida,  and  the  expectations  that  there  was  to 
be  found  the  spring  that  would  rejuvenate  man¬ 
kind,  had  not  passed  away;  nor  did  all  the  eh- 
chantments  round  about  the  name  of  Florida 
pass  away  until  a  very  recent  period,  and  per¬ 
haps  they  have  not  now  passed  away  entirety. 


6 


But  our  people  obtained  that  country,  and  they 
obtained  it  because  it  lay  immediately  adjoining 
to  ourselves;  it  was  a  country  which  we  could 
defend;  it  was  a  country  which  'we  could  build 
up;  it  was  a  country  which  we  could  assimilate 
to  our  own. 

What  further  acquisition  have  we  made?  We 
acquired  Texas.  Texas  was  contiguous  territory 
to  ours;  and,  besides,  it  was  very  sparsely  peo¬ 
pled,  and  therefore  furnished  the  opportunity  for 
our  people  to  Americanize  that  too.  But  that 
was  not  all;  the  main  leading  feature  was,  that 
the  people  who  were  there  were  ours;  there  was 
comparatively  a  small  number  of  Mexicans.  The 
people  of  Texas  were  bone  of  our  bone — children 
of  our  families,  who  went  there  to  engage  in  the 
Texas  controversy  with  Mexico;  who  declared 
themselves  independent;  who  had  for  some  time 
sustained  their  independence,  and  joined  them¬ 
selves  to  us  at  their  desire.  We  gave  no  money; 
we  got  no  land — that  was  left  to  the  people  of 
Texas.  We  paid  nothing;  ure  got  nothing,  in  a 
pecuniary  point  of  view;  but  we  knew  what  the  ; 
country  was;  we  knew  what  its  people  were;  we 
knew  what  its  position  was;  we  knew  it  was 
adapted  to  our  wants;  it  was  a  country  for  which 
we  could  furnish  defense;  it  was  a  country  that  ij 
could  furnish  defense  to  us  whenever  it  was  filled 
up  with  population.  The  acquisition  of  Texas,  j 
therefore,  shows  no  want  of  discrimination  in 
this  people  in  obtaining  territory;  that  is,  to  ob-  H 
tain  no  territory  but  such  as  is  adapted  to  their 
wants  and  their  condition;  such  as  adds  to  out¬ 
growth,  and  strengthens  us  as  a  people,  by  ob¬ 
taining  people  of  the  same  language,  the  same  in-  |j 
terest,  and  the  same  attachment. 

But,  Mr.  President,  what  is  proposed  now  ?  In 
the  first  place,  it  is  proposed  to  get  an  island,  a 
country  that  is  not  contiguous  to  us,  that  does  not 
join  us — a  country  into  which  we  cannot  march 
our  army  if  we  want  to  defend  it — a  country 
which,  if  ever  so  well  filled  up  and  assimilated  to 
us,  could  not  furnish  defense  to  us.  Besides,  it  is 
a  country  all  owned  by  private  individuals;  there  1 
is  no  land  there  which  our  nation  could  obtain  if 
we  bought  the  country,  or  conquered  the  country;  j 
no  land  which  we  could  sell  to  replace  what  we 
paid  from  our  Treasury.  There  is  no  land  we 
could  get  to  give  our  people,  either  as  bounties 
to  our  soldiers  or  inducements  to  our  settlers — 
nothing  by  which  we  could  begin  the  process  of ; 
Americanizing  such  a  country.  The  land  is  all  jj 
in  private  hands  now;  the  country  is  thickly  pop-  i 
ulated,  for  the  number  of  people  in  proportion  to 
the  square  mile  is  as  large  as  it  is  in  Virginia  or 
in  Tennessee.  It  is  a  well-inhabited  country; 
comparatively,  a  populous  country. 

Then,  sir,  what  are  we  obtaining?  Any  coun¬ 
try  that  is  contiguous  to  us  ?  No.  Any  country 
adapted  to  the  wants  of  our  people?  Certainly 
not.  Any  country  where  our  people  can  go  to 
get  land  to  cultivate  ?  Certainly  not  at  all.  Any¬ 
thing  that  we,  as  a  nation,  obtain  that  we  can  de¬ 
liver  to  them?  Nothing  at  all.  It  does  not  fall 
within  any  one  of  that  category  of  circumstances 
which  would  commend  a  country  as  desirable  to 
us. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  it  is  wanted  for  our 
defense.  I  am  not  much  of  a  military  man,  but 
clear  1  am  that  we  should  take  no  country  that 
requires  the  use  of  Army  and  of  Navy  to  sustain 


it.  I  agree  with  Mr.  Jefferson  in  hig  notions  of 
progress,  when  he  said  in  the  beginning,  “  Noth¬ 
ing  should  ever  be  accepted  which  should  require 
a  navy  to  defend  it.”  That  was  said  by  him  in 
the  very  beginning  of  our  country.  Well,  sir; 
what  is  now  said  about  Cuba  being  necessary  for 
our  defense?  It  has  been  said  over  and  over  again, 
that  we  have  no  fear,  nor  can  weexpect-anv  dan¬ 
ger  from  that  country  while  it  remains  in  the 
hands  of  Spain;  but  that  it  might  be  a  dangerous 
place  of  deposit,  and  dangerous  as  a  naval  depot 
in  the  hands  of  a  nation  of  extensive  naval  power; 
that  they  might  find  harbors  of  refuge  for  then- 
ships,  and  places  for  the  construction  of  vessels, 
out  of  which  harbors  they  might  run,  to  the  an¬ 
noyance  of  our  commerce  passing  in  and  out  of 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  That  may  be  true;  but  what 
is  such  a  nation?  Who  are  they?  The  real  ap¬ 
prehension  our  people  ever  have  on  this  subject 
is  from  England,  a  great  naval  Power.  Is  it  dan¬ 
gerous  for  us  to  have  England  in  possession  of 
a  country  in  which  there  may  be  naval  stations, 
out  of  which  they  can  send  a  force  to  annoy  our 
commerce?  We  have  thought  that  we  were  go¬ 
ing  on  pretty  largely  in  our  progress  yi  prosper¬ 
ity,  and  yet  we  have  Great  Britain  now  in  pos¬ 
session  of  a  country  ranging  two  thousand  miles 
along  our  whole  frontier,  over  which  they  may 
march  an  army  anywhere,  any  day;  and  they  are 
in  possession  of  the  whole  coast  north  of  us, 
which  commands  our  commerce,  for  all  our  com¬ 
merce  passing  to  the  eastern  continent  by  the  At¬ 
lantic  goes  directly  along  the  borders  of  New 
Brunswick,  Nova  Scotia,  and  Newfoundland.  It 
is  a  saying  among  the  ship  officers  who  navigate 
the  Atlantic,  that  when  you  wish  to  make  a  pros¬ 
perous  and  successful  voyage  to  Europe,  your 
right  way  is  to  follow  the  Gulf  stream,  to  run  so 
close  as  to  scrape  the  sea-weeds  off  Cape  Race. 
Directly  in  the  train  of  our  commerce,  our  vessels  • 
go  within  the  reach  of  British  harbors,  out  of 
which  they  can  at  any  time  send  a  force  to  annoy 
our  commerce,  but  yet  we  feel  easy  about  that. 

Cuba  can  only  be  dangerous  to  us  in  the  hands 
of  a  powerful  naval  nation  in  time  of  war.  In 
time  of  peace,  it  can  annoy  nobody.  Well,  then, 
in  time  of  war  who  will  have  possession  of  Cuba? 

It  is  an  island  lying  in  the  Atlantic,  almost  eight 
hundred  miles  long,  and,  upon  the  averagexoniy 
about  forty  miles  broad,  filled  with  bays  artd  in¬ 
lets  and  harbors  on  both  sides,  with  a  coast  two 
thousand  miles  in  length  around.  Cannot  a  naval 
power,  as  a  matter  of  course,  take  and  hold  pos¬ 
session  of  that  island  ?  Certainly,  the  most  pow¬ 
erful  one  will  do  it.  If,  then,  we  have  that  island, 
whenever  a  war  takes  place,  the  most  powerful 
nation  of  the  two  w-ho  are  engaged  in  it  will  take 
possession  of  Cuba,  Rs  a  matter  of  course.  That 
idea,  then,  of  its  being  necessary  to  us  for  our  de¬ 
fense,  has  in  it  nothing  in  the  world,  in  my  opin¬ 
ion.  It  is  a  mere  pretext. 

It  appears  to  me,  Mr.  President,  that  if  we  are 
ever  to  take  in  with  ourselves  a  country  where 
we  do  not  get  land  for  our  people  to  settle,  where 
we  have  no  space  for  them  to  occupy,  and  no  op¬ 
portunity  for  them  to  Americanize,  we  should 
stop  to  consider  what  people  it  is  we  propose  to 
take  in.  As  we  are  not  obtaining  it  for  our  ben¬ 
efit,  as  we  are  to  take  nothing  but  the  people,  for 
land  we  get  none,  and  to  take  merely  the  sover¬ 
eignty  and  political  disposition  of  them,  it  would 


7 


very  properly  become  us  to  stop  and  inquire  what 
sort  of  people  it  is  we  are  going  to  take  in.  Are 
they  a  people  adapted  to  our  institutions  ?  Are 
they  a  people  who,  if  they  understood  those  in¬ 
stitutions,  would  desire  them  ?  Are  they  a  people 
whom  we  should  desire  to  have?  Inasmuch  as  this 
is  to  be  a  marriage  into  the  family,  the  question 
is,  are  they  adapted  to  come  in,  are  they  suitable 
for  us  ? 

Well,  now,  what  are  the  people  of  Cuba?  In 
round  numbers  there  is  very  little  over  half  a 
million  of  Spanish  creole  persons  there;  a  few 
intelligent  persons  among  them,  but  the  mass  of 
them  entirely  unintelligent.  In  the  next  place, 
there  are  between  four  and  five  hundred  thousand 
slaves,  and  there  are  two  hundred  thousand  free 
blacks.  They^ire  totally  unadapted  to  our  condi¬ 
tion.  They  have  passed  no  apprenticeship  in  pop¬ 
ular  government.  They  have  always  endured  an 
entirely  absolute  Government  from  abroad  over 
them.  They  are  undrilled,  unintelligent,  speak¬ 
ing  the  Spanish  language,  unacquainted  with  ours. 
How  are  you  going  to  make  such  a  people  as  that 
become  a  part  of  a  society  like  ours,  with  our 
schools,  our  churches,  our  institutions  of  learning, 
our  notions  of  popular  self-government  ?  What 
are  we  to  take  them  in  for?  To  help  us  to  admin¬ 
ister  our  own  Government  ?  to  assist  us,  by  their 
enlightenment  and  power,  to  select  a  President? 
to  aid  us  here  in  shaping  the  institutions  of  our 
own  country? 

We  have  had  two  particular  subjects  of  agita¬ 
tion,  which  in  recent  days  at  least,  have  created 
a  great  degree  of  ill-blood  in  this  country;  nor  are 
they  entirely  removed.  These  two  subjects  are: 
first,  the  question  of  slavery,  into  the  merits  of 
which  I  do  not  propose  to  enter,  but  certainly  it  is 
a  disturbing  topic  in  this  country;  and  secondly, 
the  great  accession  of  foreigners,  invited  if  you 
please,  and  coming  into  this  country  in  great  num¬ 
bers,  who,  after  very  short  periods  of  probation, 
are  admitted  to  all  the  rights  of  citizenship,  un¬ 
educated  to  our  institutions,  and  unfitted,  as  I 
think,  in  a  great  measure,  to  the  exercise  of  those 
powers.  They  certainly  deeply  disturb  the  prob¬ 
able  success  of  our  political  experiment,  at  least  in 
the  most  populous  part  of  the  country.  At  times 
there  have  been  misgivings  in  the  minds  of  our 
most  intelligent  men  in  relation  to  this  experiment 
of  ours,  especially  in  our  populous  cities;  and  in 
a  great  measure  this  element  of  foreign  population 
is  calculated  to  create  not  only  disturbance,  but  at 
limes  matter  of  alarm. 

But,  now,  what  is  proposed  here?  Strip  it  of 
all  other  circumstances,  and  what  is  there  of  it  ? 
We  are  to  say  to  the  people  of  this  country,  a 
majority  of  whom  are  in  the  free  States,  that  they 
shall  contribute  their  portion  of  $30,000,000 — 
which  is  one  dollar  for  every  man,  woman,  and 
child  in  the  United  States — to  begin  to  facilitate 
the  acquisition  of  Cuba.  Not  that  that  is  to  ob¬ 
tain  Cuba;  not  at  all.  Well,  what  is  the  purpose? 
what  are  you  going  to  effect  by  it?  You  want  to 
repeal  the  law  against  the  importation  of  foreign 
slaves  so  far  as  to  allow  the  importation,  at  one 
sweep,  of  four  hundred  thousand.  There  are  four 
hundred  thousand  slaves  in  Cuba;  and,  if  we  take  [ 
in  Cuba,  we  import  that  number  of  slaves  into 
our  country.  Now,  I  would  ask  gentlemen,  es¬ 
pecially  those  who  better  understand  that  sort  of 
property,  as  they  call  it  property,  to  tell  me,  arc  i| 


- 1 - - 

they  really  sincere?  do  they  really  believe  it  is 
best  to  aggravate  this  disturbing  topic  by  adding 
four  hundred  thousand  more  slaves  to  our  num¬ 
ber  to-day?  and,  especially,  do  they  think  it  a 
very  modest  request,  to  ask  the  majority  of  the 
people  of  the 'United  States,  in  the  free  States  of 
this  country,  to  vote  this  money  for  that  purpose  ? 
Does  that  manifest  any  spirit  of  conciliation  on 
their  part?  It  has  not  always  been  perfectly  easy 
to  convince  our  people  that  our  southern  friends 
should  be  protected  and  preserved  in  the  use  of 
their  slaves  as  they  please,  without  our  inter¬ 
fering  at  all ;  and  that  that  is  by  virtue  of  the  Con¬ 
stitution.  I  say,  it  has  not  always  been  easy; 
and  you  have  not  always  succeeded  in  convincing 
them  of  it;  but  gentlemen  now  say,  “  we  want 
you  to  overcome  that;  tell  your  people  in  New 
England  that  we  want  them  to  furnish,  by  their 
own  accord,  by  their  own  votes,  their  share  of 
$30,000,000,  to  begin  to  try  the  experiment  of 
importing  four  hundred  thousand  slaves  at  one 
sweep.”  It  is  suggested  to  me  that,  when  we 
have  invested  the  money,  the  men  who  now  own 
the  slaves  own  them  still,  and  we  are  not  to  get 
anything.  Our  southern  friends,  who  desire  to 
get  slaves,  get  not  a  single  negro  by  it  after  they 
have  paid  their  money. 

In  the  next  place,  there  has  been  some  difficulty 
as  to  what  we  were  to  dp  with  our  free  colored 
population.  If  anything  that  we  read  is  true  in 
relation  to  the  agitation  of  that  question  in  the 
slaveholding  States,  it  certainly  is  a  very  trouble¬ 
some  question  with  them.  What  more  is  there 
in  this  proposition?  Why,  we  are  asked  to  pass 
a  law  to  take  in  Cuba,  and  thereby  take  into  our 
country  two  hundred  thousand  free  blacks.  That 
is  rather  a  startling  proposition.  But,  further,  you 
are  disturbed  about  the  naturalization  of  foreign¬ 
ers^  with  the  facility  with  which  it  is  done,  and 
their  great  and  rapid  increase  of  numbers.  There 
have  not  been  quite  so  many  foreigners  imported 
this  year  as  there  have  been  for  some  years  past, 
and  I  take  it  some  persons  begin  to  be  alarmed. 
They  fear  they  are  not  going  to  get  them  in  fast 
enough,  and  now  it  is  proposed  to  pass  a  law  by 
which,  by  taking  in  Cuba,  we  shall  take  in  a 
Spanish  creole  population  of  five  hundred  thou¬ 
sand  foreigners  in  one  day,  and  naturalize  the 
whole  of  them;  because,  when  we  acquire  the 
country,  as  I  have  already  shown,  we  cannot  hold 
it  as  a  colony;  it  becomes  an  integral  part  of  our 
country;  it  contributes  to  the  forming  of  our  des¬ 
tinies,  and  our  institutions.  Have  any  of  the 
people  who  lived  in  New  Mexico,  or  California, 
when  Mexico  ceded  them  to  us,  or  have  the  peo¬ 
ple  of  Louisiana,  that  were  there  when  we  took 
it,  ever  gone  through  any  process  of  naturaliza¬ 
tion?  Never  at  all.  They  all  became  citizens  at 
once  when  we  took  them  in,  and  now  it  is  pro¬ 
posed  by  this  process,  by  a  single  law,  to  take  in 
five  hundred  thousand  persons  of  Spanish  descent 
and  naturalize  them  at  a  single  sweep.  Even  if 
we  could  make  the  purchase,  even  if  we  could 
secure  it  peaceably  and  quietly  by  paying  out,  if 
you  please,  one  hundred  or  one  hundred  and  fifty 
million  dollars  to  buy  that  people  from  Spain, 
such  as  they  are,  never  consulting  them  about  it, 
we  should  pay  from  two  hundred  to  three  hun¬ 
dred  dollars  a  head  for  them,  black,  white,  and 
gray — the  whole  of  them,  and  agree  to  incorpo¬ 
rate  them  in  our  family,  set  them  down  by  our 


threshold  to  participate  in  our  institutions,  and 
to  select  our  officers  to  administer  our  Govern¬ 
ment. 

The  next  topic  to  which  I  wish  to  direct  atten¬ 
tion  is  this:  It  is  said  that  the  obtaining  of  Cuba 
would  check,  and  perhaps  put  an  end  to  the  Af¬ 
rican  slave  trade.  I  am  sensible  that  if  that  were 
a  well-founded  idea,  it  would  be  one  that  would 
address  itself  with  some  considerable  force  to  a 
Targe  body  of  my  people.  It  would  be  with  them 
a  question  of  humanity.  But  I  have  seen,  on  all 
occasions  like  this,  a  vast  deal  of  pretension, 
which  was  utterly  unfounded.  If  any  man  had 
heard  and  could  recollect  all  the  various  addresses 
which  were  made  to  the  people  of  this  country, 
in  order  to  induce  them  to  take  in  Texas,  and  how 
utterly  they  failed,  how  the  people  were  deluded ; 
and  I  do  not  know  but  that  many  of  them  desired 
to  be  deluded — I  fancy  he  would  hardly  listen  to 
propositions  of  this  kind  without  very  serious 
examination.  We  were  told  that  by  acquiring 
Texas,  the  slave  would  move  on  down  through 
Texas,  and  slide  away  into  Mexico  and  disap¬ 
pear.  Has  any  man  seen  that  process  commence 
in  the  fourteen  years  since  that  day?  Can  an  in¬ 
stance  of  that  kind  be  found?  And  yet  it  is  said 
that  many  people  were  deluded  with  that.  So, 
too,  it  was  said,  if  Texas  were  obtained,  all  the 
manufactures  of  the  North  would  flourish;  there 
would  be  an  outlet  for  them  all;  and  there,  too, 
as  they  would  raise  cotton,  was  to  be  found  a  sale 
for  all  the  productions  of  the  northwest.  There 
has  never  a  bushel  gone  to  them,  never  a  single 
particle  of  it,  been  realized.  It  has  been  a  total 
failure. 

In  relation  to  the  African  slave  trade,  we  must 
look  at  the  present  condition  of  slavery  in  Cuba, 
and  the  present  condition  of  the  slave  trade,  to 
judge  what  effect  would  be  produced  by  annexing 
Cuba  to  the  United  States.  1  have  in  my  hand 
a  production  by  Mr.  Torrente,  a  Spaniard ,  a  man 
of  high  intelligence,  a  former  member  of  the 
Cortes  of  Spain,  who  resided  many  years  in  Cuba. 
This  gentleman  was  in  England  when  much  fault 
was  found  with  the  conduct  of  the  Spanish  Gov¬ 
ernment  in  the  Island  of  Cuba  in  relation  to  the 
slave  trade.  It  was  contended  that  they  had  acted 
with  insincerity,  and  thereupon  he  published  a 
memoir,  giving,  as  he  said,  the  true  condition — 
and  no  doubt  it  is,  for  it  has  never  been  disputed — 
of  that  subject  as  it  existed  in  Cuba;  and  he  agrees 
entirely  with  the  Senator  from  Louisiana,  [Mr. 
Benjamin,]  who  informs  us  that  the  island  is 
utterly  valueless,  and  of  no  sort  of  importance 
unless  it  be  cultivated  by  slave  labor,  or  compul¬ 
sory  labor,  as  he  termed  it — labor  by  Africans, 
if  you  please — whites  not  being  adapted  to'  its 
cultivation. 

It  will  be  recollected,  that  in  1817,  Spain  made 
a  treaty  with  England  by  which  she  agreed  to 
abolish  the  African  slave  trade  with  Cuba,  and 
she  received  $2,000,000  in  consideration  of  it.  At 
that  time,  or  immediately  afterwards,  there  was 
a  further  arrangement  made  by  the  setting  up  of 
a  mixed  commission  in  Cuba,  which  was  to  judge 
of  all  the  negroes  brought  before  them  said  to  be 
imported  contrary  to  law,  and  set  them  at  large, 
if  it  were  proven  to  be  so.  From  that  time  for¬ 
ward,  England  has  surrounded  the  coast  of  Cuba 
with  fleets  to  break  up  this  trade.  They  have 
placed  their  fleets,  too,  on  the  coast  of  Africa, 


made  a  treaty  with  us,  by  which  we  assist  in 
putting  a  naval  force  on  the  coast  of  Africa,  and 
what  has  been  the  effect?  The  truth  is,  the  slave 
trade  to  Cuba  has  gone  on  in  the  same  degree  as 
before,  with  very  little  check.  The  slave  trade 
to  Brazil,  to  be  sure,  has  been  broken  up  within 
a  few  years,  by  the  action  of  the  Government  of 
Brazil;  but  the  slave  trade  with  Cuba  has  gone  on 
the  same  as  before;  and  he  says  it  is  utterly  im¬ 
possible  for  that  people  to  have  any  value  left  in 
their  land  on  any  other  ground.  He  says: 

“  I  will  pass  on  to  the  fifth  and  last  part  of  my  disserta¬ 
tion,  which  is  confined  to  proposing  the  means  for  terminat¬ 
ing  amicably  and  peaceably  the  negro  question — the  never- 
ending  source  of  annoyance  and  contention.  These  means 
England  herself  has  furnished.  Why  have  so  many  diffi¬ 
culties  and  compromises  been  raised,  since  the  signing  of 
the  treaty  for  the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade?  Why  have 
the  English  had  to  maintain,  and  still  keep  up  at  immense 
expense,  numerous  squadrons  on  the  coasts  of  Africa  and 
Cuba  ?  Why  have  they  been* compelled  to  establish  super¬ 
intending  commissions  in  both  places  ?  All  these  sacrifices 
have  been  necessary  for  suppressing  that  illicit  traffic.  And 
have  they  attained  their  object,  or  can  they  attain  it?  We 
can  well  advance  the  same  negative  answer  as  would  be 
given  to  whosoever  should  question  the  possibility  of  put¬ 
ting  down  the  smuggling  of  English  produce,  which  is  un¬ 
ceasingly  carried  on  in  the  Peninsula.” — Torrente’s  Slave¬ 
ry  in  the  Island  of  Cuba,  page  47. 

The  same  author  says  these  expeditions  are 
fitted  up,  and  subscriptions  made  for  them,  by  the 
planters  themselves.  They  agree  to  take  shares 
in  the  expedition,  as  low  as  $500  and  $1,000  up 
to  $5,000  or  more.  The  slaves  are  landed  and 
partitioned  out  to  these  people;  and  the  secrecy 
with  which  it  is  done  is  never  broken,  and  never 
can  be  broken.  Such  being  the  character  of  the 
slave  trade  there,  it  is  pursued,  and  pursued  not¬ 
withstanding  all  that  England  can  do,  and  not¬ 
withstanding  the  aid  which  theUnited  States  give, 
and  notwithstanding  the  aid  within  the  island  it¬ 
self.  I  cannot  here  but  refer  to  what  is  quoted  in 
the  report  of  the  committee,  on  that  subject,  as 
coming  from  Admiral  Hotham.  His  examination 
before  the  British  Parliament  is  alluded  to  on  page 
14  of  the  report: 

“  Sir  Charles  Hotham,  one  of  the  most  distinguished  offi¬ 
cers  of  the  British  navy,  and  who  commanded  on  the  coast 
of  Africa  for  several  years,  was  examined  by  that  select 
committee.  He  said  that  the  force  under  his  command  was 
in  a  high  state  of  discipline;  that  his  views  were  carried 
out  by  1 1 is  officers  to  his  entire  satisfaction  ;  that,  so  far  from 
having  succeeded  in  stopping  the  slave  trade,  he  hpd  not 
even  crippled  it  to  the  extent  of  giving  it  a  permanent 
check  ;  that  the  slave  trade  had  been  regulated  by  the  com¬ 
mercial  demand  for  slaves,  and  had  been  little  affected  by 
the  presence  of  his  squadron,  and  that  experience  had 
proven  the  system  of  repression  by  cruisers  on  the  coast  of 
Africa  futile — this,  too,  when  the  British  squadron  counted 
twenty-seven  vessels,  comprising  several  steamers,  carry¬ 
ing  about  three  hundred  gyns  and  three  thousand  men. 
The  annual  expense  of  the  squadron  is  about  ,>$3,500,000, 
with  auxiliary  establishments  on  the  coast  costing  at  least 
$1,500,000  more.” 

The  honorable  Senator  from  Louisiana,  [Mr. 
Benjamin,]  who  seems  to  be  familiar,  as  he  con¬ 
siders,  with  that  country,  says  on  the  same  sub¬ 
ject: 

“  I  affirm,  then,  Mr.  President,  that  this  magnificent  fab¬ 
ric,  built  up  by  the  slave  labor  of  Cuba,  must  perish,  or  must, 
whilst  Cuba  is  a  Spanish  colony,  be  sustained  by  the  slave 
trade  ;  a  trade  branded  as  piracy  by  her  own  laws,  by  ours, 
bv  those  of  G  reat  Britain  ;  forbidden  to  her  by  treaty  volunta¬ 
rily  made  by  Spain ;  forbidden  by  our  treaty  with  England  ; 
and  which,  by  the  treaties  of  the  three  nations,  each  is  sol¬ 
emnly  bound  to  prevent.  The  last  refuge  on  earth  for  this 
trade  is  now  found  in  the  Island  of  Cuba.  The  combined 
power  of  England  and  the  United  States  is  now  exerted  at 
the  cost  of  nearly  six  millions  per  annum  in  the  suppression 


9 


«of  this  traffic.  Its  continuance  has,  on  more  than  one  occa¬ 
sion,  brought  us  to  the  very  verge  of  hostilities  with  Great 
Britain  for  the  protection  of  our  flag,  and  yet  tens  of  thou¬ 
sands  of  slaves  are  annually  imported  into  Cuba.” 

Notwithstanding  the  united  forces  of  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States  are  kept  up  at  this 
great  annual  expense,  and  although  the  trade  is 
contrary  to  the  laws  of  Spain  over  Cuba,  so  great 
is  the  demand  for  slaves  that  they  will  run  all 
these  hazards,  and  successfully  run  them  too, 
and  carry  into  that  island  ten  thousand  a  year. 

Mr.  BENJAMIN.  Twenty-five  thousand. 

Mr.  COLLAMER.  No  matter;  I  will  say  ten 
thousand,  at  least.  I  want  to  be  moderate  in  all 
statements  of  this  kind.  Now,  what  is  it  that 
carries  these  slaves  there?  My  opinion  is,  that 
any  people  who  desire  to  have  slaves,  and  will 
pay  enough  for  them,  can  have  them  in  any  coun¬ 
try.  They  went  by  from  forty  to  fifty  thousand 
a  year  to  Brazil,  as  long  as  Brazil  would  take 
them.  The  people  of  Cuba  buy  these  slaves  and 
use  them;  and  no  doubt  now  a  large  majority  of 
the  slaves  in  that  country  are  imported,  are 
known  perfectly  to  be  so,  and  yet  all  the  power 
of  that  Government,  with  a  mixed  commission 
court  sitting  in  the  Island  of  Cuba,  does  not  re¬ 
lieve  one  of  them,  and  does  not  prevent  their 
being  taken  there.  They  pay  for  them — that  is  | 
all;  and  they  will  not  themselves  execute  the  laws  j 
of  Spain  against  their  own  interest.  I  have  no 
doubt  that  our  people  of  the  Gulf  States,  if  they 
desire  to  have  slaves,  will  have  them.  That  is  ; 
a  point  which  will  regulate  itself;  as  Admiral 
Hotham  says,  it  depends  on  the  demand  and  sup¬ 
ply;  it  depends  on  the  price  of  the  article.  But, 
now,  what  is  thp  price  of  these  slaves  in  Cuba  ? 
The  extreme  has  been  $500;  and  yet  that  price 
has  been  a  sufficient  inducement  to  men  to  beard 
and  defy  the  whole  power  of  England  and  Amer¬ 
ica  with  the  laws  against  the  trade. 

Mr.  SLIDELL.  Will  the  Senator  from  Ver¬ 
mont  allow  me  to  say  that  the  price  is  fifty  ounces 
- — $850 ? 

Mr.  COLLAMER.  That  is  since  the  recent 
rise  here.  Our  price  here  is  $1,600  or  $2,000; 
but  that  does  not  alter  my  proposition.  When 
Cuba  belongs  to  the  United  States,  what  will  be 
the  price  of  the  slaves?  You  cannot  expect  that 
when  you  have  between  three  and  four  million 
in  the  United  States,  their  price  is  to  be  lowered 
down  to  the  price  of  the  less  than  half  a  million 
in  Cuba;  not  at  all.  The  price  of  slaves  in  Cuba, 
when  it  belongs  to  us,  will  be  the  same  as  the 
rice  of  slaves  of  the  same  ability  here;  because, 
take  it,  you  can  bring  a  cargo  of  slaves — of 
course  you  can  do  it  according  to  lav/  when  the 
country  belongs  to  us — from  Cuba,  into  Charles¬ 
ton,  or  New  Orleans,  for  a  dollar  a  head.  The 
transportation  cannot  cost  more  than  that. 

Mr.  MALLORY.  Ten  dollars,  at  least. 

Mr.  COLLAMER.  That  will  depend  on 
whether  you  can  pursue  the  business  legally.  I 
suppose  now  it  would  cost  something,  because 
you  have  to  run  the  gauntlet,  and  a  man  has  to 
import  them  with  a  halter  around  his  neck;  but 
the  moment  you  make  it  lawful,  the  moment  Cuba 
belongs  to  us,  I  venture  to  say  you  will  find  Yan¬ 
kee  vessels  enough  to  carry  them  in  cargoes  of 
five  hundred  for  a  dollar  a  head .  I  say  Yankees, 
because  there  is  nobody  else,  in  fact,  who  navi¬ 
gate  your  vessels  to  any  considerable  extent,  and 
there  are  probably  men  enough  in  all  our  cities 


of  the  North,  ready  to  supply  the  market  with 
slaves,  if  you  will  give  price  enough.  Then  the 
price  of  slaves  in  Cuba,  when  it  belongs  to  us, 
will  be  the  price  of  slaves  here,  and  vice  versa; 
because  the  price  of  transportation  from  one  place 
to  the  other  is  merely  nominal,  when  it  can  be 
done  lawfully. 

Now,  I  simply  put  the  proposition  thus:  If 
$500  a  head  is  enough  inducement  to  bid  defiance 
to  the  whole  power  of  England  and  America  to 
prevent  the  traffic,  what  will  $1,000,  or  $1,500,  a 
head  do?  The  very  statement  of  the  proposition 
furnishes  a  reply:  $500,  $600,  or  $800,  now,  as  it 
is  said,  does  defy  all  power  to  stop  the  trade. 
What  will  the  $1,000,  or  $1,500,  a  head  do?  It 
is  said  Cuba  is  the  only  place  to  which  African 
slaves  are  now  carried;  and  if  we  receive  Cuba 
into  this  country,  I  take  it  the  British  will  stop 
the  keeping  of  their  fleet  on  the  coast;  because, 
they  will  say,  now  there  is  no  country  that  allows 
their  importation.  If  their  fleet  is  withdrawn,  it 
will  be  simply  left  to  what  the  United  States  may 
do.  We  know  what  little  they  will  do  by  know¬ 
ing  what  even  they  and  England  put  together  could 
not  do.  Suppose,  further,  we  should  really  un¬ 
dertake  that  business,  and  undertake  it  with  suc¬ 
cess.  Now  we  find  that  $6,000,000  a  year,  laid 
out  by  England  and  America,  does  not  stop  the 
trade  at  all,  I  ask  you  how  much  will  stop  it  alto¬ 
gether  if  we  should  build  a  fleet,  and  sustain  it, 
actually  sufficient  for  the  purpose?  It  is  utterly 
beyond  the  reach  of  our  power. 

Therefore,  I  say  that  the  undertaking  to  obtain 
Cuba,  for  the  purpose  of  putting  an  end  to  the 
African  slave  trade,  is  a  delusion,  an  utter  delu¬ 
sion.  So  far  from  that,  the  necessary  effect  of  it 
would  be  that,  instead  of  stopping  this  trade, 
Cuba  would  be  the  depot,  the  point  of  putting  out, 
and  the  point  of  bringingin,  all  the  slaves  wanted 
for  the  South  and  the  southwestern  part  of  the 
United  States.  Does  any  man  believe  that  the 
Gulf  States,  who  desire  so  much  the  acquisition 
of  Cuba,  really  mean  to  take  that  country,  and 
expect  to  supply  to  it  from  ten  to  twenty  or  thirty 
thousand  slaves  a  year  from  the  United  States? 
Or,  do  they  expect  to  leave  it  to  the  decimation 
which  the  honorable  Senator  from  Louisiana  says 
it  must  come  to  unless  it  is  supplied  ?  We  all  know 
they  never  can  be  furnished  in  that  way;  there  is 
not  a  supply  for  them.  Another  thing:  the  States 
in  the  extreme  South  have  no  desire  to  have  Cuba 
supplied  with  slaves  from  Maryland  and  Virginia 
and  Kentucky.  They  want  all  their  own,  and 
more,  too.  They  do  not  want  the  border  slave 
States  shaded  off  into  being  what  they  call,  if  you 
please,  abolition.  They  are  not  entering  into  this 
policy  with  a  view  to  anything  of  that  kind  at  all. 
They  do  not  expect  to  supply  slaves  for  Cuba  in 
that  way. 

I  have  a  single  word  to  say  in  relation  to  the  un¬ 
suitableness  of  that  people  to  become  a  part  of 
ourselves.  One  leading  feature  of  our  institutions 
is  the  entire  freedom  of  religion.  I  am  not  now 
!  tocommence  any  tirade  against  Roman  Catholics, 

1  or  any  other  order  of  the  Christian  Church  of  any 
kind;  but  it  is  a  very  leading  feature  of  our  system 
that  we  not  only  tolerate,  but  encourage,  the  pub¬ 
lic  administration  of  the  ordinances  of  religion  in 
all  the  forms  in  which  men  profess  it,  and  protect 
each  other  in  the  exercise  of  this  privilege.  Now, 
l  what  are  these  people?  They  are  bigoted  and 


10 


tenacious;  so  that  on  these  points,  I  may  say  from 
want  of  enlightenment,  they  cannot  endure  the 
performance  of  any  of  the  rites  and  ceremonies 
of  the  Christian  Church  in  any  other  form  than 
that  approved  by  the  Government;  nay,  so  far  is 
this  carried  that  they  will  not  permit  it  at  the  fu¬ 
neral  of  a  Protestant.  I  know  it  has  been  some¬ 
times  complained  that  there,  as  well  as  in  Spain, 
they  do  not  permit  the  interment  of  the  bodies 
of  Protestants  in  their  burial  grounds  and  ceme¬ 
teries.  I  believe  that  is  usual  with  the  Catholic 
church.  I  do  not  myself  think  that  furnishes 
much  ground  of  complaint;  but  it  is  said  they 
deny  them  the  right  of  Christian  burial.  This 
same  Mr.  Torrente,  from  whose  pamphlet  I  read 
before,  undertakes  to  answer  this  objection,  and 
insists  that  it  is  not  well  founded;  but  see  the 
conclusion  to  which  he  comes: 


It  has  never  objected  to  such  individuals  purchasing  and 
inclosing  pieces  ot'  ground  in  the  form  of  cemeteries  for  the  ! 
purpose  of  depositing  therein,  with  all  decency,  the  mortal 
remains  of  their  brother  religionists  ;  but  it  (the  Govern¬ 
ment)  cannot  do  less  than  oppose  ostentation  in  such  funer¬ 
als,  as  well  as  all  other  religious  ceremonies  different 
from  that  of  the  Catholic  faith.”  *  *  *  “  They 

will  be  allowed  to  do  so,  provided  they  renounce  all  pomp 
and  ceremonies,  except  such  as  are  in  accordance  with  the 
religion  of  the  State.” 

That  is  to  say,  we  cannot  do  more  than  permit 
you  to  bury  your  dead  in  burying-grounds  of  your 
own  making;  we  cannot  permit,  even  at  a  funeral, 
any  religious  ceremonies  whatever,  but  such  as 
is  according  to  the  religion  of  the  State.  How 
can  such  a  people  be  in  any  way  molded  in  with 
us,  and  cheerfully  indulge  and  encourage  the  free 
exercise  of  religious  ceremonies? 

There  is  no  thought,  1  believe  scarcely  the 
slightest  hope,  indulged  or  expressed  by  any  ob-  j 
serving  man  that  it  is  expected  we  are  to  purchase 
Cuba  under  this  proposition.  That  is  not  left  in 
doubt  or  uncertainty.  Jt  is  perfectly  known  that 
it  cannot  be  purchased.  1  cannot  but  observe, 
that  since  the  report  was  made  some  disclosures 
have  been  made  on  this  point.  On  the  9th  page 
of  the  report  we  find  this  expression: 

“  Mach  1ms  been  said  of  the  indelicacy  of  this  mode  of 
proceeding;  that  the  offer  to  purchase  will  offend  the  Span¬ 
ish  pride,  be  regarded  as  an  insult,  and  rejected  with  con¬ 
tempt;  that  instead  of  promoting  a  consummation  that  all 
admit  to  be  desirable,  it  will  have  the  opposite  tendency,  it 
this  were  true,  it  would  be  a  conclusive  argument  against 
the  bill.” 


Thus  the  committee  state,  that  if  we  knew  the 
matter  was  objectionable  to  Spain,  and  would  be 
regarded  by  her  as  offensive,  it  would  be  a  suffi¬ 
cient  objection  against  the  bill.  We  have  th»t 
concession  from  the  committee.  Well,  sir,  im¬ 
mediately  after  the  publication  of  this  report,  we 
had  information  of  the  action  of  the  Spanish  Min¬ 
istry  and  Spanish  Cortes,  leaving  no  possible 
doubt  about  it,  utterly  abnegating  any  possibility 
of  the  purchase;  and  yet,  were  the  exertions  to 
carry  this  bill  through  in  the  least  remitted?  Not 
at  all.  Is  the  sentiment  of  the  report,  that  that 
would  be  a  conclusive  objection  against  the  bill, 
regarded  as  true?  We  all  perfectly  understand  j 
that  Cuba  is  not  for  sale;  that  Spain  will  deem  it 
offensive  for  us  to  make  the  offer.  It  is  not  for 
me  here  to  say  whether  that  ought  to  be  so  or 
not:  it  is  enough  that  it  is  so.  The  truth  is,  it  is 
preposterous  to  make  the  offer,  and  it  is  to  them 
about  as  objectionable  as  the  proposition  of  Simon 
Magus;  and  the  only  answer  which  will  be  re¬ 


turned  to  it  is  that  which  was  returned  to  himr 
“  Thy  money  perish  with  thee.”  I  do  not  mean 
to  take  time  on  this  point.  It  is  enough  for  us 
to  know  that  Cuba  is  not  for  sale,  and  cannot  be 
bought,  and  nobody  expects  to  buy  it. 

Well,  then,  if  this  island  is  not  wanted  for  de¬ 
fense,.  if  it  is  not  wanted  for  settlement,  if  it  is  not 
wanted  to  put  an  end  to  the  African  slave  trade, 
if  it  is  not  wanted  as  a  good  purchase,  pray  what 
is  the  purpose  of  this  bill  ?  what  is  the  object  of  it? 
Here,  of  course,  I  must  be  left,  in  some  measure, 
to  conjecture;  but  I  shall  state  what  l  believe  to  be 
the  purpose,  and  my  reasons  for  entertaining  that 
belief. 

It  is  intended  to  make  the  offer  with  the  expect¬ 
ation  that  it  will  be  rejected.  It  is  then  intended 
to  take  measures  to  get  up  as  many  claims  and 
charges  and  complaints  against  Spain  as  you  can,, 
and  then  to  seize  the  island  by  way  of  satisfaction. 

I  do  not  say  all  this  is  to  be  done  in  a  day  or  in 
an  hour;  but  that  is  the  process  to  be  entered 
upon.  In  the  first  place,  you  will  observe  that  the 
President  of  the  United  States  does  not  ask  for  any 
$30,000,000.  His  proposition  was  to  get  some¬ 
thing  like  what  Mr.  Polk  had,  something  like 
what.  Mr.  Jefferson  had, in  the  cases  he  cites.  How 
much  was  that?  Two  million  dollars.  He  does 
not  mention  the  sum,  but  cites  these  cases  by  way 
of  example.  He  does  not  ask  any  $30,000,000. 
What  the  President  wants  is  a  legislative  expres¬ 
sion  of  our  approbation  of  this  policy.  Before  he 
enters  upon  the  prosecution  of  it,  in  all  its  rela¬ 
tions,  lie  desires  to  be  backed  by  having  his  prop¬ 
ositions  in  some  way  indorsed  by  legislative  ac¬ 
tion,  by  an  expression  of  the  will  of  Congress, 
There  is  no  other  way  in  which  that  can  be  prop¬ 
erly  and  regularly  and  legitimately  expressed,, 
but  in  the  form  of  an  appropriation  of  some  kind;, 
that  is,  legislative  action.  Resolutions  containing 
expressions  of  opinion  would  not  be  anything  of 
a  legislative  character;  would  not  be  within  the 
scope  of  our  delegated  powers.  He  wants  legis¬ 
lative  action,  as  I  say,  for  the  purpose  of  initiating 
his  policy. 

A  man  can  hardly  avoid,  in  this  discussion, 
asking  why  this  comes  up  at  this  time,  and  in 
this  way,  and  why  it  is  that  the  President  fiuds 
some  ground  of  expectation  that  he  can  be  doing, 
something  that  anybody  will  indorse?  On  that 
point,  I  hold  in  my  hand  a  speech  of  the  honor¬ 
able  Senator  from  South  Carolina,  which  has  ob¬ 
tained  for  him  something  like  a  national  reputa¬ 
tion.  It  has  been  spread  broadcast  over  the  land, 
and  read  with  much  approbation,  if  you  please. 
Now,  what  is  the  sum  and  substance  of  this  “ad¬ 
dress  of  the  Hon.  James  H.  Hammond,  at  Barn¬ 
well  Court-House ?”  I  have  read  it,  and  reread 
it.  It  is  essentially  an  effort  on  the  part  of  the 
honorable  gentleman  to  dissuade  his  audience 
and  the  people  of  the  South  from  three  or  four  no¬ 
tions  which  they  entertain.  I  allude  to  it  merely 
for  the  purpose  of  showing  what  those  notions 
are,  so  that  it  may  not  be  said  I  have  charged  the 
people  of  the  South  with  entertaining  them;  but 
I  show  from  this  speech  that  Governor  Hammond 
labors  with  them  and  tries  to  dissuade  them  from 
entertaining  these  notions.  I  take  it  that  proves 
that  they  do  entertain  them.  What  are  they  ? 

In  the  first  place  they  desire  to  obtain  Mexico. 
What  for  ?  To  form  it  into  slave  country,  in  order 
that  the  slaveholding  States  may  come  back  again 


II 


to  an  equal  position  in  the  Senate  with  the  free 
States.  I  will  not  say  there  is  anything  discred¬ 
itable  in  that;  but  that  was  a  sentiment  of  Mr. 
Calhoun.  It  was  what  he  called  equality  of  States. 
He  thought  the  free  and  the  slave  States  should 
be  an  equal  number  in  the  Union;  and,  of  course, 
have  equal  power  in  the  Senate.  That,  with  him, 
was  a  desideratum,  and  he  seemed  to  consider  it 
necessary  for  the  safety  of  the  slaveholding  States. 
When  the  disturbing  topic  of  slavery  was  settled 
by  the  Missouri  compromise,  he  agreed  to  it;  he 
participated  in  it;  and  I  ought,  in  credit  and  honor 
to  him,  to  say,  he  never  attempted  to  disturb  it. 
But  it  was  found ,  before  a  great  many  years,  that 
by  admitting  Louisiana  and  Missouri  and  Ar¬ 
kansas  and  Florida,  they  had  used  up  pretty  much 
all  the  territory  that  could  be  used  for  making 
slave  States  south  of  the  line,  and  it  would  be  ne¬ 
cessary,  as  new  free  States  were  formed  north  of 
36°  30',  to  balance  them  by  some  country  ac¬ 
quired,  for  we  had  no  more  country  to  make  into 
slave  States.  Hence,  the  annexation  of  Texas 
was  put  on  foot  for  that  purpose;  which  was  not 
disguised  at  all.  In  the  making  of  the  treaty, 
which  did  not  succeed,  Mr.  Calhoun,  then  Secre¬ 
tary  of  State  under  President  Tyler,  officially  an¬ 
nounced  that  the  policy  was  to  sustain  and  per¬ 
petuate  the  institution  of  slavery;  that  that  was 
the  object  of  obtaining  Texas.  I  know  that  many 
of  our  people  were  humbugged  with  the  idea  that 
it  was  going  to  be  one  of  the  institutions  for  abol¬ 
ishing  slavery;  but  the  author  of  it,  the  man  who 
formed  the  treaty,  Mr.  Calhoun,  as  Secretary  of 
State,  announced  officially  that  the  purpose  was 
to  sustain  slavery;  but  those  who  rather  chose  to 
be  humbugged  by  Mr.  Walker’s  statements  in 
regard  to  it,  would  not  take  the  official  announce¬ 
ment.  We  know  that  treaty  failed ;  and  the  mat¬ 
ter  was  presented  to  the  Democratic  party  in  their 
convention  at  Baltimore.  Everybody  expected 
that  they  would  run  Mr.  Van  Buren;  but  when 
they  came  together,  it  v/as  found  that  Mr.  Van 
Buren  had  written  and  published  a  letter ‘against 
the  annexation  of  Texas;  and  that  was  the  end 
of  him.  Then  the  Democracy  of  the  North  were 
plainly  told,  if  you  choose  a  President  to  carry 
into  effect  this  purpose  of  ours,  you  can  have  a 
Democratic  President;  if  you  will  not  let  us  take 
one  that  we  select  for  that  purpose,  you  cannot 
have  a  Democratic  President  at  all;  and  they  were 
constrained  to  agree  to  it.  We  know  that  the  re¬ 
sult  was,  that  Texas  was  annexed  by  a  joint  res¬ 
olution;  and  provision  was  made  for  dividing  her 
into  three  or  four  States,  with  her  own  consent, 
so  that  they  might  be  brought  in  as  slave  States, 
to  balance  the  free  States  as  they  came  in.  I  do 
not  say  there  was  anything  discreditable  in  this. 

All  that,  however,  did  not  seem  to  answer.  I 
do  not  know  exactly  why  Texas  has  not  been 
divided;  but  I  believe  that  State,  on  the  whole, 
does  not  like  to  be  dismembered;  she  rather  de¬ 
sires  to  retain  her  importance  as  a  great  State; 
and  I  am  not  sure  but  that  there  may  be  another 
view,  and  that  is,  if  they  should  divide  it  with  a 
view  to  make  more  slave  States,  it  is  problematic 
whether  some  of  them  would  not  turn  out  to  be 
free  States.  At  any  rate,  no  attempts  have  been 
made  toward  that  division. 

Then  the  people  who  had  entertained  these  no¬ 
tions,  desiring  to  keep  up  this  equality  of  States, 
enter  upon  the  business  of  obliterating  the  Mis- 


^  souri  compromise.  Mr.  Calhoun  is  dead;  all  that 
generation  has  passed;  another  has  come  up  “  that 
knew  not  Joseph;”  and  then  it  was  that  the  line 
j  of  36°  30'  was  obliterated  from  the  map,  for  the 
purpose  of  getting  some  slave  States  north  of  the 
line,  as  there  was  no  other  country  to  make  into 
slave  States.  I  need  not  go  over  now  the  efforts 
which  have  been  made  to  form  Kansas  into  a 
slave  State,  nor  detail  particularly  the  instrumen¬ 
talities  which  the  party  have  thought  proper  to 
use  in  countenancing  fraud,  violence,  and  blood, 
to  effect  that  purpose;  but  all  has  failed. 

What  next?  Is  the  idea  abandoned?  I  know 
that  the  Senator  from  South  Carolina,  in  his 
Barnwell  speech,  undertakes  to  convince  these 
people  that  they  had  better  abandon  that  idea; 
but  they  have  not  abandoned  it;  it  is  not  given  up. 
The  effort  now  made  before  us  is  part  and  parcel 
of  the  same  thing,  because  one  of  those  views 
was  the  acquisition  of  Cuba.  He  labors  that  point 
in  his  speech,  1  think,  with  very  much  ability, 
and  very  much  candor;  and  I  respect  him  for  it; 
but  I  think  he  has  hardly  succeeded  in  convinc¬ 
ing  that  people  to  give  it  up.  At  any  rate,  I  think 
the  President  has  adopted  their  notion,  and  is 
pushing  it  forward  on  us,  as  being  one  that  will 
give  him  great  strength  at  the  South,  in  his 
opinion. 

So,  too,  of  the  acquisition  of  Mexico.  The 
Senator  labors  to  convince  his  people  that  that  is 
a  delusion;  that  it  cannot  be  effected.  This  busi¬ 
ness  of  acquiring  Mexico  for  the'purposes  of  that 
!  people,  is  a  very  doubtful  affair.  Slavery  has 
failed  in  Mexico  once  already.  That  mixed  pop¬ 
ulation  are  not  exactly  of  the  kind  that  they  can 
reasonably  expect  the  institution  of  African  sla¬ 
very  will  prosper  with.  I  am  very  suspicious  that 
ji  it  would  hardly  do  to  undertake  to  take  Mexico 
for  this  purpose,  except  it  was  in  homeopathic 
doses.  Sweep  in  Mexico  at  present,  and  it  is  the 
beginning  of  amalgamation.  That  is  a  people  of 
mixed  race  and  blood.  So  far  fro<n  marking  a 
line  of  discrimination  between  black  and  white,  it 
is  almost  utterly  obliterated,  and  would  step  over, 
and  gradually  spread  itself  over,  and,  instead  of 
aiding  this  country,  debauch  it.  The  people  there 
have  tried  self-government,  and  it  is  a  perfect  fail¬ 
ure.  Those  are  hardly  desirable  elements  to  in¬ 
graft  into  our  institutions.  1  very  much  coin¬ 
cide  with  the  viev/s  expressed  in  the  speech  by 
the  honorable  Senator  from  South  Carolina,  that 
that  is  a  subject  that  had  better  be  touched  with 
great  care.  It  is  a  very  doubtful  policy,  especially 
for  the  purposes  for  which  they  desire  it. 

Another  idea  that  they  entertain  is  the  opening 
of  the  African  slave  trade.  1  think  the  honora- 
I  ble  Senator’s  views  on  that  subject  very  well  and 
candidly  expressed  to  them,  but  1  doubt  very 
,  much  whether  he  has  persuaded  them.  He  may 
have  persuaded  the  people  of  South  Carolina;  but 
we  have  reason  to  believe  that  the  desire  to  open 
the  slave  trade  io  entertained  to  a  very  large  extent 
;  at  the  South.  I  do  not  mean  by  the  majority  of 
;  its  people;  I  do  not  mean  by  the  most  intelligent 
!  of  its  people;  l  do  not  mean  by  the  northern  por¬ 
tion  of  the  elaveholding  States;  but  it  cannot  be^ 
disguised  that  there  is  such  a  feeling  in  the  South. 
Formerly,  when  you  said  to  us,  “slavery  is  an 
institution  which  has  come  down  to  us  from  our 
fathers;  we  have  three  million  slaves;  we  know  not 


12 


the  most  prudent  way  we  can,  and  you  ought  not ! 
to  visit  us  with  anathemas  in  consequence  of  our 
having  this  unavoidable  evil  amongst  us;  it  was 
not  of  our  introducing;”  as  long  as  that  was  the 
position  held,  it  commended  itself  very  much  to 
the  consideration  of  all  candid  men;  but  we  have 
passed  over  that  period;  that  is  utterly  discarded. 
It  is  now  claimed  that  slavery  is  a  Divine  institu¬ 
tion,  the  very  best  possible  condition  for  both 
races,  the  highest  state  of  civil  society. 

The  middling  classes  of  people  in  the  slave¬ 
holding  States  have  seen  prosperity  only  by  the 
slaveholders.  They  have  seen  the  planters,  the 
farmers,  the  men  of  wealth  and  prosperity,  the 
Cotton-growers,  the  sugar-growers,  prospering 
and  thriving — how?  By  the  use  of  slave  labor. 
These  people  never  saw  any  other  prosperity; 
they  do  not  know  that  a  white  man  is  capable,  by 
his  own  labor,  of  self-elevation;  they  never  saw 
it;  they  cannot  know  it.  Now,  is  it  at  all  as¬ 
tonishing  that  a  man  of  that  class  should  say  to 
his  brother,  “You  and  I  are  men  of  moderate  cir¬ 
cumstances;  do  you  not  see  that  all  the  wealth 
and  prosperity,  all  the  ease  and  luxury  is  with 
those  who  own  slaves?  Cannot  you  and  I  have 
some  slaves?”  “  No;  they  cost  $1,500  a  head;  here 
is  the  Governor  has  five  hundred,  and  our  Rep¬ 
resentative  to  Congress  has  a  thousand ;  you  and  I 
have  not  got  one,  and  we  cannot  get  one  because 
we  have  not  $  1,500  or  $2,000  to  pay  for  one.  Now, 
how  are  we  ever  to  elevate  ourselves?  How  are 
we  ever  to  have  any  prosperity?  How  are  we 
ever  to  have  any  ease  and  luxury  ?”  “  I  can  tell 
you:  add  prosperity  to  this  divine  institution  by 
aiding  in  the  importation  of  large  numbers  of 
slaves,  and  put  them  at  such  a  price  that  we  shall 
be  able  to  get  some,  and  then  we  will  see  whether 
we  cannot  take  position  with  our  more  wealthy 
neighbors.”  This  view  is  entertained,  and  with 
t*he  slave-holders,  the  men  of  intelligence,  if  you 
please,  men  of  worth,  men  of  patriotism,  it  has 
got  to  be,  ant>  is  fast  getting  to  be,  a  very  delicate 
subject  and  a  rather  troublesome  point. 

A  ship  goes  out — the  Wanderer;  it  brings  in  a 
cargo  of  slaves;  they  are  scattered  through  the 
country  and  carried  on  the  railroad  cars;  but  does 
any  man  reclaim  any  of  them  and  deliver  them 
to  the  Government  to  be  taken  home  ?  Not  one.  ; 
Is  there  a  governing  public  opinion  against  the  im¬ 
portation  of  slaves  when  three  hundred  imported 
Africans  can  be  scattered  through  the  southern 
country  in  the  most  public  manner,  and  not  one 
of  them  reclaimed?  What  is  it  for?  With  po¬ 
litical  men  it  is  looked  at  in  this  way:  “  we  desire 
to  obtain  Mexico,  to  make  an  equality  of  States; 
we  desire  to  open  the  slave  trade,  that  we  may 
get  slaves  with  which  to  settle  new  States,  and 
make  them  slave  States  in  order  to  produce  that 
equality  ;  and  we  want  Cuba,  because  it  is  already 
filled  with  slaves;  we  shall  not  have  to  import 
slaves  to  add  to  our  numbers  there;  we  will  just 
levy  a  tax  on  all  the  free  people  so  as  to  raise 
030,000,000  now,  and  $100,000,000,  or  more,  af¬ 
terwards,  to  buy  that  for  the  purpose  of  adding 
to  our  political  weight.  ”  That  is  the  proposition. 
The  question  is,  whether  our  people  will  do  it? 

Mr.  SLIDELL.  Will  the  Senator  from  Ver¬ 
mont  permit  me  to  make  a  remark  here? 

Mr.  COLLAMER.  Certainly. 

Mr.  SLIDELL.  He  states,  what  is  the  fact, 
that  the  slaves  brought  in  by  the  Wanderer  have 


been  openly  carried  through  Georgia  and  Ala- 
1  bama;  but  there  is  no  power,  no  authority,  that 
will  enable  anybody  to  arrest  these  slaves  under 
the  law  of  the  United  States.  The  efforts  of  the 
Government,  up  to  this  time,  have  been  entirely 
directed  towards  the  prosecution  of  the  men  who 
j  have  dealt  in  them,  who  haye  purchased  and  sold 
them;  and  I  will  only  say  to  the  Senator  from 
Vermont,  that  if  he  will  introduce  a  bill  bv  which 
the  power  shall  be  conferred  upon  the  Govern¬ 
ment  of  the  United  States  to  arrest  a  slave  ille¬ 
gally  introduced  into  the  United  States,  I  will 
cooperate  with  him  very  cheerfully  in  the  passage 
of  it. 

Mr.  COLLAMER.  There  is  a  bill  lying  on  the 
table  now;  it  has  lain  there  for  weeks  and  weeks; 
and  has  any  southern  gentleman  tried  to  move  it? 
It  has  been  reported  from  the  committee  long 
since.  Does  the  honorable  Senator  wish  to  clear 
his  State  of  this  apparent  imputation,  or,  if  not 
his  own  State,  other  southern  States?  Is  the  least 
effort  made  about  it?  He  wants  that  I  should  do 
something.  I  have  nothing  to  do  with  it. 

Mr.  SLIDELL.  I  will  answer  the  Senator  if 
he  desires  it.  1  think  that  the  sentiment  of  the 
southern  portion  of  the  United  States  is  decidedly 
adverse  to  the  traffic  in  slaves,  so  long  as  it  is  pro¬ 
hibited  by  the  laws  of  the  United  States.  I  think 
that  is  the  universal  sentiment.  There  is  a  por¬ 
tion  of  the  people  of  the  southern  country  who 
think  that  the  interests  of  civilization  and  human¬ 
ity,  and  the  industry  of  the  country,  would,  per¬ 
haps,  be  promoted  by  the  renovation  of  the  slave 
trade,  under  certain  regulations.  I  think  they  are 
still  a  very  small  portion  of  our  community;  but 
if  the  slave  trade  be  not  suppressed  in  other  coun¬ 
tries;  if  the  people  of  Cuba  can  purchase  slaves  at 
a  very  reduced  price;  if  the  Emperor  of  France 
can  take  them  in  unlimited  numbers  into  his  col¬ 
onies,  the  people  <wthe  South  may  fear  the  com¬ 
petition  of  cheap^lave  labor,  or  pretended  free 
labor,  and  there  will  be  a  total  change  of  public 
sentiment  at  the  South,  and  y^u  will  find  many 
advocates  for  the  slave  trade  among  men  who  are 
not  so  now. 

Mr.  COLLAMER.  I  desire  to  exercise  all 
courtesy  to  the  gentleman  in  relation  to  this,  which 
is  his  peculiar  topic;  but  I  do  not  wish  to  have 
speeches  in  favor  of  the  African  slave  trade,  in  any 
aspect  in  which  it  can  present  itself,  thrown  into 
the  body  of  my  speech,  and  published  with  it. 
[Laughter.]  I  do  not  like  it. 

Mr.  SLIDELL.  There  is  a  very  simple  rem¬ 
edy;  not  to  have  it  published  in  the  pamphlet 
speech. 

Mr.  COLLAMER.  I  do  not  contemplate  hav¬ 
ing  a  pamphlet.  I  do  not  make  any  speeches  for 
Buncombe.  Mr.  President,  I  am  not  practically 
familiar  with  all  the  laws  on  this  subject;  but  I 
take  it  that  imported  slaves  into  this  country  may 
be  surrendered  to  the  Executive,  and  it  is  his  duty 
to  return  them  home.  I  know  that,  if  public  opin¬ 
ion  in  Georgia,  or  Alabama,  and  that  portion  of 
the  country,  is  so  decided  against  the  renewal  of 
the  African  slave  trade  as  gentlemen  would  seem 
to  suppose,  those  Africans  would  be  given  up;  but 
there  will  not  be  a  man  of  them  given  up.  It  has 
been  published  in  the  papers  that  “  Brother  such 
a  one  has  gotten  one  of  those  boys  for  $200.  I  have 
looked  him  over,  and  I  think  him  a  great  acquisi¬ 
tion.”  Nobody  undertakes  to  say  that  they  must 


13 


be  delivered — not  at  all.  The  truth  is,  as  I  stated, 
that  the  large  part  of  the  people  in  the  South — I 
do  not  say  the  most  intelligent  people  there,  but 
a  large  part  of  them  in  point  of  numbers — think 
their  condition  would  be  decidedly  improved,  and 
the  condition  of  the  African,  too,  by  having  the 
slave  trade  revived.  Recently,  1  see  it  stated  in 
their  papers,  if  the  slave  trade  is  open,  you  can¬ 
not  get  a  jury  to  indict  and  convict.  I  believe  they 
have  found  a  bill  recently  against  the  master  or 
owner  of  a  vessel.  Whether  he  will  be  convicted, 
remains  to  be  seen. 

I  have  only  called  attention  to  these  topics  for 
the  purpose  of  showing  that  these  are  the  senti¬ 
ments  entertained  by  our  southern  people:  that 
we  should  open  the  African  slave  trade;  that  we 
should  extend  our  borders  and  take  in  Mexico 
and  all  that  country  for  the  purpose,  as  they  think, 
of  their  own  security;  if  you  please,  for  the  pur¬ 
pose  of  obtaining  at  least  equal  weight  in  the 
command  of  this  Government.  When  1  have  said 
that,  I  am  not  charging  upon  them  anything  of  a 
criminal  nature  at  all.  1  do  not  charge  them  with 
an  intent  to  abuse  that  power  if  they  could  get  it; 
but  that  is  not  the  point.  The  acquisition  of 
Cuba,  opening  the  African  slave  trade,  and  the 
dissolution  of  the  Union,  secession,  those  are  the 
topics  on  which  the  honorable  Senator  thought 
proper  to  address  the  people,  and  very  soundly 
to  address  them.  I  wish  he  could  convince  the 
whole  of  the  South  on  that  topic,  but  he  has  not 
done  it. 

I  think  that  the  President  himself  disagreed 
with  the  Senator  from  South  Carolina  in  relation 
to  these  points.  He  has  proceeded  to  indorse 
them.  I  do  not  mean  that  he  favors  their  idea  in 
regard  to  the  dissolution  of  the  Union,  but  he  has 
indorsed  them  for  the  purpose  they  avow.  Per¬ 
haps  he  has  done  so  from  a  fear  of  the  dissolution 
of  the  Union.  He  may  have  thought  it  necessary 
to  accommodate  them  in  their  feeling  upon  all 
these  subjects  by  his  aid,  in  order  to  prevent  their 
dissolving  the  Union.  Senators  have  argued  this 
case  as  if  they  were  talking  entirely  to  the  people 
of  the  southern  States.  Somehow  or  other,  it 
seems  to  be  forgotten  that  the  majority  of  the 
people  of  the  United  States  participate  in  none  of 
these  views.  The  question  presented  is,  will  the 
people  of  the  free  States  contribute  their  substance 
to  enter  upon  this  policy  for  the  purpose  of  aid¬ 
ing  the  South  in  obtaining  power  to  govern  the 
North  in  the  Union,  or  to  get  out  of  it,  if  they  de¬ 
sire  to  do  so  ? 

In  order  to  present  more  fully  my  view  in  re¬ 
lation  to  the  purposes  and  designs,  that  is,  the 
ultimate  use  of  this  power  of  force,  I  wish  to 
enter  a  little  more  into  the  detail  and  history  of 
this  subject.  I  know  it  is  true  that  the  President 
has  long  entertained  this  project.  It  is  a  favorite 
child  of  his  old  age.  The  notion  has  been  enter¬ 
tained  moreor  less  distinctly  in  his  mind  forsome 
time.  It  is  only  more  fully  developing  itself  at 
this  time.  The  President  knew  full  well,  not  only 
before  these  recent  manifestations  of  the  public 
feelingof  Spain, that  he  could  not  purchase  Cuba; 
he  knew  it  as  well  in  the  first  place  as  he  does  now. 
The  very  proposition,  in  the  form  in  which  it  is 
put  forth,  is  utterly  inconsistent  witlr  the  idea  of 
the  purchase.  Why,  sir,  when  he  himself  was 
Secretary  of  State,  in  his  instructions  to  Mr. 
Saunders,  at  the  time  he  was  our  Minister  to 


Spain,  upon  this  topic,  what  does  he  say  to  him  ? 
Speaking  of  the  manner  of  conducting  this  busi¬ 
ness,  he  tells  him: 

“  Such  delicate  negotiations,  at  least  in  their  incipient 
stages,  ought  always  to  be  conducted  in  confidential  con¬ 
versation,  and  with  the  utmost  secrecy  and  dispatch.” 

And  now,  he  comes  to  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States  to  get  a  declaration  in  the  face  of 
the  world  of  the  purposes  that  we  design.  How 
utterly  inconsistent  is  that  with  the  idea  he  thus 
properly  expressed  of  the  manner  in  which  alone 
such  a  thing  could  be  done.  He  knew  another 
thing  perfectly  as  well,  and  that  is,  that  when  Mr. 
Soule  went  as  our  minister  to  Spain,  Mr.  Marcy 
told  him  this: 

“  Under  certain  conditions  the  United  Stales  might  be  will¬ 
ing  to  purchase  it ;  but  it  is  scarcely  expected  that  you  will 
find  Spain,  should  you  attempt  to  ascertain  her  views  upon 
the  subject,  at  all  inclined  to  enter  into  such  a  negotiation. 
There  is  reason  to  believe  that  she  is  under  obligations  to 
Great  Britain  and  France  not  to  transfer  this  island  to  the 
United  States.  Were  there  nothing  else  to  justify  this  be¬ 
lief  but  the  promptness  with  which  these  two  Powers  sent 
their  naval  forces  to  her  aid  in  the  late  Cuba  disturbances, 
the  proposition  for  a  tripartite  convention  to  guaranty  Cuba 
to  Spain,  and,  what  is  more  significant  than  either  of  the 
above  facts,  the  sort  of  joint  protest  by  England  and  France, 
to  which  I  adverted  in  my  instructions  to  Mr.  Buchanan, 
against  some  of  the  views  presented  in  Mr.  Everett’s  letter 
of  the  2d  of  December  last,  to  M.  Sartiges.the  French  Min¬ 
ister,  would  alone  be  satisfactory  proof  of  such  arrange¬ 
ment.” 

Then  the  Secretary  of  State  had  informed  Mr. 
Soule  that  there  was  no  doubt  there  was  a  treaty 
between  Spain  on  the  one  side,  and  France  and 
England  on  the  other,  that  they  would  guaranty 
that  Cuba  should  not  be  taken  from  her;  and 
she  would  guaranty  she  would  not  sell  it  to  the 
United  States.  Now,  that  is  not  my  conjecture. 
That  is  the  official  announcement  of  the  view  then 
taken.  The  present  President  knew  of  this.  He 
not  only  understood  it,  but  he  knew  it  had  been 
tested,  too;  because  Mr.  Soule  went  to  Spain, 
and  he  did  not  give  up  the  idea  of  obtaining  Cuba. 
How  do  you  suppose  he  expected  to  obtain  it 
after  the  information  he  had  from  the  Secretary 
of  State?  Why,  it  is  quite  obvious.  There  were 
claims — among  others  the  Black  Warrior  claim 
— on  foot  then,  not  settled;  there  were  other  things 
to  complain  about;  transactions  in  Cuba;  claims 
upon  Spain  under  the  old  commission,  not  settled 
to  this  day,  and  are  published  now  among  the 
list  of  claims  against  Spain.  What  did  Mr.  Soule 
undertake  to  do?  There  is  no  doubt  about  it.  He 
undertook  to  get  Cuba  in  satisfaction  of  those 
claims.  That  was  the  mission  he  went  upon.  He 
did  not  go  to  settle  the  claims  in  any  other  way, 
because  in  his  letter  written  after  the  Ostend  con¬ 
ference  to  the  Secretary  of  State,  and  before  he 
left  Spain,  he  says  this.  This  letter  is  dated  the 
23d  of  December,  1854: 

“The  question  of  Cuba  was  the  other  day  (18th  instant) 
brought  into  discussion  in  the  Cortes,  and  gave  rise  to  the 
animated  debate  which  you  will  find  reported  in  the  in¬ 
closed  number  of  the  Official  Gazette. 

“The  minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  with  an  emphasis  full 
of  significancy,  repelled  the  suspicion  that  the  Government 
might  be  disposed  to  part  with  it,  by  declaring  that,  in  its 
judgment,  ‘  to  part  with  Cuba  would  be  to  part  with  the 
national  honor.’ 

“  The  declaration  was  covered  with  the  frantic  applause 
of  the  galleries,  and  received  the  spontaneous  and  undivided 
sanction  of  the  house.” 

Now  I  come  to  the  sentence  on  which  I  rely: 

“Thus  was  disposed  of,  in  a  single  session  of  that  grave 
body,  the  Cortes,  what  of  hope  the  United  States  might 


14 


still  retain  of  bringing  their  difficulties  with  this  country  to 
a  peaceable  and  friendly  adjustment  through  the  cession  to 
them  of  that  island.” 

What  hope  had  been  entertained  of  getting  the 
cession  from  Spain  of  that  island,  for  those  claims, 
was  ended.  That  was  in  1854.  The  President 
knew  of  that,  too.  He  did  not  need  the  recent 
demonstration  in  the  Cortes.  That  is  nothing  but 
a  mere  repetition  of  the  affair.  Then  he  did  not 
want  this  appropriation  with  a  view  and  expect¬ 
ation  of  the  purchase  of  Cuba.  He  knew  it 
could  not  be  purchased  before. 

I  cannot  but  make  a  few  observations,  Mr. 
President,  as  to  how  this  subject  is  now  brought 
up  for  consideration.  I  have  endeavored  to  show 
why  it  is.  These  sentiments  entertained  by  the 
southern  people,  give  the  reason  why  this  time 
is  taken;  but  how  has  it  got  up?  I  ought  to  fol¬ 
low  a  little  further  into  this  topic.  I  speak,  now, 
not  so  much  upon  authority;  but  still  I  think 
upon  good  grounds  of  suspicion.  It  will  be  found 
that  there  never  was  any  attempt,  by  Mr.  Soule, 
to  settle  those  claims  and  the  points  of  difficulty 
between  us  by  treaty.  His  ministry  there  was  not 
to  do  that,  except  it  was  by  getting  the  cession  of 
Cuba.  That  was  his  object;  and  when  he  left 
that  mission, 1  b’elieve  it  would  be  found,  if  the 
archives  of  the  State  Department  were  searched, 
that  there  had  been  submitted  a  most  liberal  and  |j 
fair  proposition,  on  the  part  of  Spain,  for  the  set¬ 
tlement  of  difficulties  and  the  arrangement  of  com¬ 
mercial  affairs,  and  the  reciprocity  of  privileges 
to  our  commerce  and  our  trade  and  our  people,  in 
their  country ,  as  well  as  theirs  here.  That  prop- 
osition  was  never  entertained  by  him.  I  believe 
it  was  never  sent  to  this  Government  by  him;  but 
I  think  it  will  be  found.  The  claims  were  in¬ 
tended  to  be  kept  back  for  the  purpose  of  being 
used  upon  some  more  auspicious  occasion  for  the 
great  object  of  the  acquisition  of  Cuba.  I  think 
that  the  archives  of  the  State  Department  will 
verify  what  I  say. 

Mr.  DAVIS.  If  the  Senator  will  permit  me, 

I  wish  to  direct  his  attention  to  this  point:  As  1 
understand,  he  passes  from  the  first  letter  of  Air.  | 
Marcy  to  the  first  letter  of  Air.  Soule,  as  though 
nothing  intervened. 

Air.  COLL  AMER.  I  am  going  to  attend  to  that. 

Air.  DAVIS.  And  he  argues  from  this,  that 
Air.  Soule  never  attempted  to  get  any  settlement 
of  the  claim  against  Spain. 

Mr.  COLLAAIER.  I  think  I  shall  show  how 
he  managed  that. 

Air.  DAVIS.  And  I  will  further  direct  his  at¬ 
tention  to  the  fact,  that  he  treats  the  Black  War¬ 
rior  case  as  hanging  up  after  Mr.  Soule  went 
there. 

Air.  COLLAA1ER.  It  has  been  settled  since 
that  time. 

Mr.  DAVIS.  It  began  since  that  time,  and 
interrupted  the  progress  of  negotiations  by  its  cur¬ 
rent. 

Air.  COLLAMER.  I  will  say  to  the  Senator, 
the  Black  Warrior  case  was  settled  by  itself;  but 
we  had  a  variety  of  claims  against  Spain.  There 
are  great  numbers  of  them;  a  great  quantity  of 
them,  ready  at  any  time  to  be  brought  out  when 
wanted.  They  are  here  on  the  schedule,  printed.  ; 
Gentleman  can  easily  find  them.  There  is  a  large 
ledger  account,  heavily  balanced  in  our  favor, 
against  every  nation  in  Europe. 


Air.  DAVIS.  Perhaps  the  Senator  does  not 
understand  what  I  mean.  He  was  arguing  against 
the  Black  Warrior  case,  as  existing  when  Mr. 
Soule  went  there. 

Air.  COLLAAIER.  The  gentleman  will  not 
get  me  diverted  from  the  particular  case  which  I 
am  arguing,  by  making  a  side  issue. 

Air.  DAVIS.  The  Senator  has  made  a  side 
issue,  by  arraigning  the  minister  and  doing  in¬ 
justice  to  the  negotiation. 

Air.  COLLAAIER.  My  opinion  is,  Mr.  Presi¬ 
dent,  that  the  claims,  whatever  they  were,  were 
intended  to  be  used  by  him;  and  I  do  not  know 
but  that  he  tried  to  use  them.  I  do  not  say  there 
is  anything  discreditable  in  that.  No  doubt  was 
entertained  that  it  would  be  desirable  to  get  Cuba, 
if  we  could  at  a  rational  price,  and  in  the  settle¬ 
ment  of  these  claims.  1  do  not  complain  that  there 
is  anything  dishonest  or  unfair  or  dishonorable 
in  that;  not  at  all.  He  did  not  succeed;  he  could 
not  succeed  in  it. 

Air.  DAATS.  The  claim  did  not  exist  when 
his  negotiation  began. 

Air.  COLLAMER.  Air.  President,  the  Sena¬ 
tor  seems  to  suppose  that  I  make  the  Black  War¬ 
rior  a  single  case.  I  tell  you  there  are  now’ exist¬ 
ing  a  long  list  of  claims  which  were  unsettled 
then,  and  are  unsettled  now. 

Air.  DAVIS.  That  case  did  not  exist — was 
not  in  the  category  at  all. 

Air.  COLLAAIER.  What  if  it  did  not? 

Air.  DAVIS.  The  whole  argument  falls? 

Air.  COLLAMER.  No,  sir;  it  does  not.  My 
argument  is  not  founded  on  the  Black  Warrior 
case.  I  choose  not  to  have  an  issue  thus  made 
on  an  unimportant  point.  I  am  speaking  of  the 
claims  which  did  exist,  and  there  were  a  large 
catalogue  of  them,  and  which  now  exist,  for  they 
have  never  been  settled.  He  endeavored  to  use 
those  claims  as  a  means  for  the  acquisition  of 
Cuba,  but  he  did  not  succeed. 

When  Mr.  Soule  was  there,  and  had  ascer¬ 
tained  that  there  was  no  prospect  of  succeeding 
in  obtaining  Cuba,  what  next  took  place?  The 
next  thing  coming  in  order  is  the  Ostend  confer¬ 
ence.  Air.  Walsh,  an  old  and  experienced  states¬ 
man,  says,  in  relation  to  Cuba,  recently: 

‘‘Europe  imagined  that  the  anomalous  and  marvelous 
Ostend  conference  was  held  in  consequence  of  Mr.  Soule’s 
despair  of  such  a  consummation  as  purchase  or  cession  be¬ 
ing  made.” 

Sir,  the  Ostend  conference  was  holden  because 
Air.  Soule  utterly  despaired  of  the  success  of  his 
negotiations;  and  that  brings  us  to-day  to  that 
Ostend  conference.  Now,  what  is  the  great 
sweeping  point  of  that  Ostend  conference  ?  It 
is  all  summed  up,  and  lies  in  a  very  narrow 
space.  Speaking  of  the  acquisition  of  Cuba, 
they  say: 

“  Whilst  pursuing  this  course  we  can  afford  to  disregard 
the  censures  of  the  world,  to  which  we  have  been  so  often 
and  so  unjustly  exposed. 

“  After  we  shall  have  offered  Spain  a  price  for  Cuba,  far 
beyond  its  present  value,  and  this  shall  have  been  refused, 
it  will  then  be  time  to  considerthe  question  :  does  Cuba,  in 
the  possession  of  Spain,  seriously  endanger  our  internal 
peace  and  the  existence  of  our  cherished  Union  ? 

“  Should  this  question  be  answered  in  the  affirmative, 
then  by  every  law,  human  and  divine,  we  shall  be  ju-tified 
in  wresting  it  from  Spain,  il  we  possess  the  power  ;  and 
this,  upon  the  very  same  principle  that  would  justify  an  in¬ 
dividual  in  tearing  down  the  burning  house  ofhis  neighbor, 


15 


I 

if  there  were  no  other  means  of  preventing  the  flames  from 
destroying  his  own  home. 

“  Under  such  circumstances,  we  ought  neither  to  count 
the  cost  nor  regard  the  odds  that  Spain  might  enlist  against 
us.” 

When  that  manifesto,  that  declaration  of  sen¬ 
timent  came  here,  the  Secretary  of  State  disap-  jj 
proved  especially  of  it.  Mr.  Marcy  said  to  them, 
in  his  letter  to  Mr.  Soule  of  the  13th  of  November, 
1854: 

“  The  language  of  some  part  of  the  report  might,  perhaps, 
be  so  construed  as  to  sustain  the  inference  that  you  and 
your  associates  in  the  conference  were  of  opinion  that,  the 
proposition  should  be  made,  though  there  should  be  no 
chance  of  its  being  entertained  ;  and  that  it  should  be  accom¬ 
panied  with  the  open  declaration,  or  a  significant  sugges¬ 
tion  that  the  United  States  were  determined  to  have  the 
island,  and  would  obtain  it  by  other  means,  if  their  present 
advances,  so  advantageous  to  Spain,  be  refused  by  her.” 

That  is  the  sense  in  which  he  received  that  part 
of  the  communication.  He  disapproved  the  pol¬ 
icy  of  making  an  offer  which  they  had  good  rea¬ 
son  to  believe  would  be  rejected.  He  so  informed 
Mr.  Soule,  in  his  letter  in  answer  to  this  mani¬ 
festo  of  the  Ostend  conference.  That  was  in  Oc¬ 
tober.  On  the  13th  of  November,  Mr.  Marcy 
wrote  this  to  him,  and  immediately  on  receipt  of 
it,  Mr.  Soule,  in  December,  enters  his  resignation. 
He  says: 

“  Your  dispatch  of  the  13th  ultimo,  leaving  me  no  alter¬ 
native  but  that  of  continuing  to  linger  here,  in  languid  im¬ 
potence,  or  of  surrendering  a  trust  which,  with  the  difficul¬ 
ties  thrown  in  the  way  of  its  execution,  I  would  strive  in 
vain  to  discharge,  either  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  Govern-  i 
merit  or  to  my  own  credit,  you  will  not  be  surprised  at  the  j 
course  which  a  sense  of  dignity  has  impelled  me  to  adopt. 

“ 1  resign  my  commission  of  envoy  extraordinary  and 
minister  plenipotentiary  at  this  Court.” 

Here,  then,  we  find  this  history.  Mr.  Soule 
goes  there  with  the  attempt. to  obtain  Cuba  in  pay¬ 
ment  of  these  claims  against  Spain,  and  utterly 
fails;  thereupon  the  Ostend  conference  is  holden, 
and  its  manifesto  published.  I  shall  not  attempt 
to  English  it.  Mr.  Secretary  Marcy  stated  the 
import  of  that  portion  of  it.  Mr.  Soule,  upon  i 
being  informed  that  the  Government  did  not  ap¬ 
prove  of  making  an  offer  to  be  rejected,  resigned 
his  position  and  came  home.  The  subject  has 
slept  from  that  time  to  this;  nothing  more  has 
been  said  about  it  until  this  message  came  from 
the  President.  Can  any  man,  putting  these  facts 
together,  understand  it  differently  from  this  ?  The  j 
President,  in  his  present  message,  has  been  a  little  j 
more  cautious,  though  the  other  was  somewhat 
ambiguous  and  oblique.  In  his  annual  message 
he  says,  upon  this  topic: 

“All  the  territory  which  we  have  acquired  since  theori-  1 
giu  of  the  Government,  has  been  by  fair  purchase  from 
France,  Spain,  and  Mexico,  or  by  the  free  and  voluntary 
act  of  the  independent  State  of  Texas,  in  blending  her  des¬ 
tinies  with  our  own.  This  course  we  shall  ever  pursue,  un¬ 
less  circumstances  should  occur  which  we  do  not  now  an¬ 
ticipate,  rendering  a  departure  from  it  clearly  justifiable 
under  the  imperative  and  overruling  law  of  self' preserva¬ 
tion.” 

Then  we  do  understand  that  this  is  but  a  new 
edition,  a  little  different  impression  of  the  Ostend 
conference.  We  mean  to  get  Cuba  by  purchase, 
if  we  can  peacefully;  but,  at  the  same  time,  he 
says:  “  1  hope  the  time  will  not  come  when  we 
shall  have  to  take  it  any  way,  because  it  is  ne¬ 
cessary  to  us.  Spain,  you  sell  us  Cuba.  I 
want  Congress  to  make  an  appropriation  that  I 
may  make  an  offer  to  you ;  and  1  want  it  distinctly 
understood  that  if  they  do  so,  I  hope  I  shall  not  | 


have  to  whip  you;  I  hope  the  necessity  of  that 
will  notarise  at  all.”  What  does  that  mean?  It 
means  precisely  what  the  Spanish  Cortes  under¬ 
stood  it  to  mean — menace.  Now,  we  are  asked, 
when  is  that  occasion  to  arise?  When  is  that 
shadowy  notion  of  necessity  ever  to  arise?  Can 
any  man  really  believe  that  the  necessities  of  the 
political  existence  of  this  country  are  staked  upon 
the  possession  of  Cuba?  You  cannot  suppose 
this  Union  can  be  dissolved  by  the  possession  of 
Cuba  by  any  other  nation.  By  the  power  of  this 
Legislature  we  might  build  thousands  of  ships, 
to  carry  millions  of  men,  and,  I  was  about  to  say, 
we  could  not  merely  sweep  the  island  to  desola¬ 
tion,  but  we  could  shovel  up  the  whole  of  it  into 
the  ships  and  dump  it  off  into  the  Atlantic  ocean. 
The  idea  that  the  possession  of  Cuba  is  necessary 
to  the  actual  existence  of  this  country,  is  a  mere 
figment  of  the  imagination.  That,  then,  is  not 
what  the  Ostend  conference  alludes  to.  It  is  not 
what  the  President’s  message  alludes  to.  To 
what,  then,  do  they  allude  ?  I  am  not  forced  into 
conjecture.  It  appears  to  me  that  we  find  the  so¬ 
lution  of  that  point  in  this  very  report.  What 
does  the  report  say? 

“  The  law  of  our  national  existence  is  growth.”  *  * 

*  *  “  When  they  cease  to  grow  they  will  soon 

commence  that  period  of  decadence  which  is  the  fate  of  all 
nations,  as  of  civilized  man.” 

That  is,  not  the  day  that  thou  diest  thou  shalt 
surely  die,  but  dying  your  death  shall  com¬ 
mence.  That  is  the  sentiment:  the  moment  this 
nation  ceases  to  grow  by  expanding  its  territory, 
this  nation  commences  its  decadence — dying  it 
shall  die.  Therefore,  the  consequence  surely  flow¬ 
ing  from  that  is,  when  we  come  to  Cuba  and  want 
to  take  that,  and  expansion  is  necessary  in  that 
direction,  or  we  think  it  is,  one  of  two  alterna¬ 
tives  is  presented  to  us:  we  must  take  it,  or  we 
commence  dying.  That  is  the  necessity.  There 
cannot  be  a  higher  notion  of  the  necessity  as  that 
describes  it.  The  time  has  come,  it  says,  for  us 
to  take  Cuba.  If  Congress  will  declare  that  to  be 
the  national  policy,  whenever  it  is  necessary  to 
take  Cuba  to  prevent  our  decadence  commencing, 
to  anticipate  that  point  of  culmination,  we  must 
seize  upon  it,  and  are  justified  by  the  law  of  na¬ 
tional  necessity.  That  appears  to  me  to  be  a  fair 
exposition  of  the  principles  contained  in  that  re¬ 
port  as  illustrative  of  and  declaring  the  condition 
and  the  exigency  under  which  the  right  to  take 
it  is  justified. 

Now,  sir,  if  you  turn  to  the  speech  of  the  hon¬ 
orable  Senator  from  Ohio,  [Mr.  Pugh,]  you  will 
find  that  he  sustains  the  same  view  of  it.  He  says 
that  every  nation  has  a  right  to  self-defense  and 
to  attack  for  that  purpose.  He  instances  the  case 
of  the  Caroline  cut  out  by  the  British  from  a 
harbor  upon  the  strait  of  Niagara  and  sent  over 
the  falls,  and  he  says  that  was  justified  and  jus¬ 
tifiable.  Very  well;  so  it  was'.  Then  he  says 
that  the  very  possession  of  Cuba  by  Spain  is  to 
us  of  greater  danger  and  more  annoyance  than 
the  Caroline  ever  was  to  the  people  of  Canada. 
That  is  the  substance  of  it.  Then  the  necessity 
has  come;  the  seizure  of  the  island  is  justifiable 
as  a  necessity;  and  that  is  the  manifestation  of 
this  principle  as  declared  here. 

Mr.  President,  I  believe  that  the  use  of  force  is 
intended  in  this  case.  I  have  here  in  my  hand  a 
little  extract  from  the  annual  message  of  the  Gov- 


ernor  of  Louisiana,  the  same  State  from  which 
the  honorable  author  of  this  report,  written  with 
very  great  ability  as  it  is,  and  the  honorable  Sen¬ 
ator  who  spoke  in  its  support,  come.  Governor 
Wickliffe,  after speakingof  the  “southern  policy” 
of  the  present  Administration,  and  congratulating 
the  people  that  it  is  negotiating  for  the  acquisition 
of  Cuba,  hopes  that  “  if  this  means  of  setting  the 
island  free  should  fail,  some  more  potent  one  will 
be  used.” 

That  is  his  view.  I  have  before  me  the  report 
made  in  the  House  of  Representatives  on  this 
same  subject  of  the  acquisition  of  Cuba.  They 
were  tender-footed  at  first,  but  after  all  the  pur¬ 
pose  comes  out.  After  arguing  the  case  at  some 
length,  to  see  what  the  manner  of  annexing  it 
would  be,  they  tell  us: 

‘£  The  committee  hope  that  circumstances  may  never  oc¬ 
cur  rendering  it  incumbent  on  the  United  States,  ‘  under 
the  imperative  and  overruling  law  of  self-preservation’  ” — 

That  word  comes  in  again — 

— “  to  take  possession  of  the  island  without  the  consent  of 
Spain;  but  if  they  should,  summary  measures  could  be  much 
more  easily  justified,  if  we  are  prepared  to  show  that  we 
have  exhausted  honorable  negotiation  in  attempts  to  avert 
the  necessity,  and  had  offered  to  Spain  an  equivalent  in 
exchange  for  it.  As  such  an  offer  might  be  necessary  to  the 
complete  vindication  of  this  Government  hereafter,  we 
ought  not  to  be  deterred  from  making  it  by  any  supposed  un¬ 
willingness  on  the  part  of  Spain  to  accept  it,  or  even  to 
entertain  it  in  an  amicable  spirit.” 

According  to  this  report,  the  offer  should  be 
made,  even  if  we  knew  they  would  reject  it. 
That  is  the  very  point  on  which  Mr.  Marcy  dis¬ 
approved  of  the  manifesto  of  the  Ostend  confer¬ 
ence;  but  here  it  is  announced  to  the  world  that 
the  United  States  propose  to  take  up  the  subject 
and  make  the  offer.  What  does  all  that  mean  ? 
Why,  it  is,  that  the  manifesto  of  the  Ostend  con¬ 
ference,  signed  by  the  present  President  himself, 
shadowing  forth  the  ultimate  purpose  of  this  pol¬ 
icy,  and  disapproved  of  by  the  then  Administra¬ 
tion  of  the  United  States,  is  now  taken  up,  re¬ 
vived,  presented  to  this  body,  and  even  that 
feature  of  it  directly  approved  by  the  report  of 
the  committee  of  the  House  of  Representatives. 
Can  any  man  tell  me,  after  all  this,  that  we  can¬ 
not  understand  the  purpose  of  it?  I  know  that 
another  step  has  got  to  be  taken  before  you  use 
force,  that  which  is  always  taken  on  such  occa¬ 
sions — to  begin  to  pick  a  quarrel,  prepare  the 
public  mind,  and  fix  the  public  appetite,  upon  the 
acquisition  of  that  island.  Senators  find  fault 
with  the  people  whom  they  are  about  to  rob  of 
this  possession.  The  honorable  Senator  from 
Louisiana  [Mr.  Benjamin]  occupied  a  large  por¬ 
tion  of  his  speech,  and  displayed  much  of  his 
elequence,  in  undertaking  to  show  how  tyranni¬ 
cal  a  government  Spain  exercised  over  Cuba. 
The  first  thing  it  is  necessary  to  do  in  such  cases, 
is  to  call  names  and  get  up  prejudice  against 
them.  Even  Jack  Falstaff,  when  he  robbed  the 
carriers  of  the  money  at  Gadshill,  called  them 
“gorbellied  knaves.”  You  must  call  names  and 
opprobrious  epithets  to  get  up  a  prejudice  in  the 
public  mind.  The  next  step  is  to  disparage  their 
title.  The  honorable  Senator  has  even  done  that.  | 
He  says  that  the  only  title  which  Spain  has  got 
over  Cuba  is,  that  she  possesses  sovereignty  over 
it.  I  wonder  what  country  in  this  world  owns 
another  by  a  better  title  than  Spain  owns  Cuba. 

I  should  like  to  see  any  better  title.  They  have 


had  it  for  more  than  three  hundred  years,  with 
the  exception  of  a  short  time  in  1762,  when  it  was 
taken  possession  of  by  the  British,  and  surren¬ 
dered  the  next  year.  I  think  they  have  got  as 
good  a  title  as  we  could  be  able  to  show,  in  a 
court  of  justice,  against  our  Indian  friends  and 
their  descendants. 

The  Senator  from  Ohio,  not  content  with  this, 
attempts  to  find  fault  with  the  title  which  they 
have  to  the  country.  The  amount  of  his  argu¬ 
ment  is,  that  there  is  no  equitable  title  to  Cuba 
on  the  part  of  Spain.  He  says: 

It  is  a  possession  by  mere  strictness  of  title,  without 
any  reason  of  equitable  consideration.” 

Some  Senators,  particularly  the  latter  gentle¬ 
man,  act  upon  the  notion  that  Cuba  naturally  be¬ 
longs  to  us. 

Mr.  PUGH.  I  think  it  naturally  belongs  to 
the  people  who  live  there;  and  when  the  title  is 
asserted  by  mere  force,  against  their  will,  I  say  it 
has  no  existence. 

Mr.  COLLAMER.  The  gentleman  knows 
nothing  about  their  will .  They  have  not  been 
consulted  about  their  will.  He  does  not  propose 
to  consult  them  about  it  at  all. 

Mr.  PUGH.  I  supposed  the  Senator  would 
allow  me  to  interpret  my  own  language. 

Mr.  COLLAMER.  There  is  nothing  in  this 
proposition,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end,  about 
ever  asking  the  people  of  Cuba  anything  about 
what  is  to  become  of  them.  He  says  there  is  no 
title.  The  Senator  from  Virginia,  and  I  believe 
even  the  Senator  from  New  York,  [Mr.  Seward,] 
have  a  notion  that  it  naturally  belongs  to  us.  Now, 
what  would  we  think  of  a  man  whose  neighbor’s 
farm  joined  his,  and  the  owner  of  it  lived  some 
distance  from  it,  who  would  insist  upon  it  that  it 
naturally  belonged  to  him;  that  he  could  make 
more  of  it  than  the  man  who  owned  it;  and  be¬ 
sides  that,  it  joined  his  property?  I  can  merely 
say  that  such  a  man  would  not  be  likely  to  be  a 
very  acceptable  neighbor.  I  think  the  country 
which  entertains  notions  of  that  kind  in  relation 
to  territory  which  joins  them,  or  is  near  them, 
belonging  to  a  nation  at  a  distance,  although  it 
might  be  more  profitable  to  them,  and  insisted 
upon  it  that  it  naturally  belonged  to  them,  and 
that  they  therefore  were  unnaturally  deprived  of 
it,  I  think  such  a  nation  is  more  employed  in 
coveting  their  neighbor’s  property  than  cultivat¬ 
ing  their  own,  and  as  likely  to  be  as  unaccepta¬ 
ble  neighbors  in  the  family  of  nations. 

Again,  we  not  merely  call  them  names  and  find 
fault  with  their  titles,  but  we  find  the  report  filled 
up  with  complaints  about  them.  The  very  pre¬ 
amble  of  the  bill  before  us  goes  upon  the  ground 
that  there  are  constant  aggressions  on  the  part  of 
the  people  of  Spain  in  Cuba  upon  us,  increasing, 
magnifying  every  day,  and  endangering  us.  It 
is  obvious,  Mr.  President,  that  the  next  step  is 
to  get  up  a  large  body  of  charges  to  prejudice  the 
public  mind,  and  excite  the  public  indignation  if 
you  can  about  it,  in  some  way  or  other,  and  then 
proceed  to  the  taking  possession.  It  is,  indeed, 
nothing  more  than  a  repetition,  upon  a  large  scale, 
of  the  old  case  of  Ahab  and  Naboth.  Naboth 
refused  to  sell  the  inheritance  of  his  father  to 
Ahab,  for  a  garden  of  herbs  or  for  the  money. 
Charges  were  gotten  up  against  him  at  the  insti¬ 
gation  of  Jezebel;  he  was  stoned;  and  she  said, 
“  Now  Naboth  is  dead,  go  and  take  possession 


17 


of  his  vineyard,  that  he  refused  to  sell  to  you  for 
money;”  and  he  did  it. 

Much  has  been  said  in  the  progress  of  this  de¬ 
bate  about  the  prospect  of  the  interference  of  Eng¬ 
land  and  France  in  this  transaction.  You  will 
observe  Mr.  Marcy  says,  that  we  have  good 
reason  to  believe  that  there  is  a  treaty  existing  be¬ 
tween  Spain,  on  the  one  side,  not  to  sell  Cuba, 
and  France  and  England  on  the  other  to  guar¬ 
anty  its  possession  to  her.  Very  well.  Now, 
when  gentleman  say  if  England  interferes  in  the 
case  of  our  trade  with  Spain  for  Cuba,  she  will 
interfere  in  that  which  is  none  of  her  business; 
and  thereupon  they  commence  a  long  attack  upon 
Great  Britain.  They  show  what  violence  she  has 
committed  to  the  world,  and  tell  her,  “  why  do  you 
interfere  with  us  in  a  trade  which  both  of  us  agree 
to?”  Why,  Mr.  President,  that  is  an  unfair  at¬ 
tack  upon  her.  Nobody  has  suggested  that  France 
and  England  are  about  to  interfere  with  force  in 
relation  to  any  trade  we  may  make  with  Spain 
for  Cuba.  To  be  sure,  the  course  taken  with  this 
measure  was  to  institute  proceedings  in  Congress, 
and  publish  it  to  the  world  that  we  are  moving 
about  it,  and  thus  giving  France  and  England 
notice  to  prevent  Spain  from  making  the  trade. 
That  is  what  the  proceeding  is;  but  they  do 
not  propose  to  interfere  with  force  about  it.  It 
is  when  we  attempt  to  take  it  by  force  that 
their  interference  is  to  come  in;  not  that  they 
will  interfere  with  a  trade  with  which  they  have 
nothing  to  do,  but  that  they  will  interfere  pur¬ 
suant  to  their  own  treaty  in  guarantying  that  to 
Spain  when  we  attempt  forcibly  to  wrest  it  from 
her.  I  do  not  choose  to  pursue  that  part  of  the 
case  any  further.  I  agree  entirely  with  what  was 
said  by  the  honorable  Senator  from  South  Caro¬ 
lina  to  his  people  in  his  address  at  Barnwell  Court- 
House,  that  our  undertaking  to  take  forcible  pos¬ 
session  of  Cuba  would  involve  the  world  in  war. 
That  such  a  purpose  is  contemplated  now,  I  have 
already  given  my  view  upon. 

I  come  now  to  speak  for  a  little  while  on  the 
commercial  aspects  of  this  subject.  I  shall  not 
occupy  a  large  portion  of  time  with  that  branch 
of  the  discussion.  It  is  said  that  if  we  were  to 
take  in  Cuba,  we  should  have  no  sugar  duties  to 
pay.  I  believe  those  sugar  duties  amount  to  a 
very  considerable  sum — §4,000,000  a  year.  Be¬ 
sides  what  we  have  from  Louisiana,  at  least  eight 
tenths  of  all  the  sugar  imported  into  this  coun¬ 
try  comes  from  Havana  and  Matanzas,  in  Cuba, 
and  the  duties  upon  itamount  to  a  very  consider¬ 
able  sum — §4,000,000.  That  mode  ofargument- 
ation  addressed  to  the  northern  and  commercial 
part  of  the  United  States,  seems  to  be  based  upon 
the  simple  idea  of  their  cupidity.  It  is  saying  to 
them:  “You  gain  something  by  this  business; 
you  can  have  more  trade  there;  you  can  save 
your  sugar  duties;”  just  as  if  that  people  were 
ready,  utterly  independent  of  any  sentiment  of 
regard  for  the  principles  of  right  and  wrong,  to 
agree  to  the  annexation  of  Cuba  on  that  ground. 
Such  is  the  ovcrwecnirigopinion  of  their  cupidity, 
that  it  seems  to  be  supposed  they  would  enter  into 
anything  if  they  could  make  money  by  it.  I  do 
not  think  that  is  well  founded.  But  if  these  du¬ 
ties  upon  sugar  are  really  so  much  of  a  grievance 
and  annoyance  and  trouble,  we  have  got  them  on 
entirely  for  the  benefit  of  Louisiana;  and  1  can 
merely  say,  that  if  the  honorable  Senators  from 


Louisiana  want  that  sugar  duty  repealed,  so  that 
the  people  shall  not  have  to  pay  it,  they  shall 
have  my  vote  to  do  it.  If  they  do  not  want*  those 
duties,  they  need  not  have  them.  It  is  a  matter 
of  their  own  entirely.  I  can  merely  say  that  it 
is  unnecessary  to  steal  Cuba  for  that  purpose. 
But  what  relief  is  there  in  that?  All  the  duties 
that  you  fail  to  collect  upon  sugars  we  have  to 
pay  upon  some  other  importations.  It  would  be 
no  relief  at  all. 

Mr.  President,  these  three  great  purposes  are 
thus  entertained  in  the  view  of  the  people  of  the 
South,  in  the  manner  I  have  stated.  I  have  shown 
that  they  have  been,  and  still  are,  maintained  by 
them.  Among  others,  is  the  acquisition  of  Mex¬ 
ico,  and,  I  suppose,  Central  America.  Indeed, 
the  very  ground  on  which  this  proceeding  is 
instituted,  the  very  first  incipient  stage  in  it,  is 
based  upon  a  claim  which  shows  it  has  no  termi¬ 
nation  to  it.  We  are  told  in  this  report,  we  are 
told  in  the  speeches  of  Senators,  that  the  neces¬ 
sity  for  obtaining  Cuba  arises  from  our  owning 
Louisiana  and  Florida.  The  acquisition  of  Lou¬ 
isiana,  they  say,  necessitated  the  acquisition  of 
Florida,  and  these  two  now  necessitate  the  acqui¬ 
sition  of  Cuba.  Why?  Because  you  must  not 
have  in  the  hands  of  a  foreign  power  a  country 
where  there  are  ports  that  can  give  shelter  to  a 
navy  that  may  annoy  your  commerce.  Then,  if 
j  you  take  Cuba,  you  must  take  Jamaica,  because 
j  they  couid  fit  out  ships  from  there  to  annoy  Cuba; 
you  must  take  San  Domingo;  you  must  take  the 
Bahama  islands.  The  step  you  first  take  neces- 
j  sarily  implies  and  includes  that  you  shall  take 
j  the  whole  sweep  of  the  West  India  Islands 
around  to  Venezuela,  at  the  northeast  angle  of 
South  America,  and  then  upon  the  coast  upon 
which  it  breasts  take  down  through  Mexico  and 
:  Central  America,  until  you  come  around  to  meet 
'  it.  In  short,  as  the  honorable  Senator  from  Geor- 
J  gia,  [Mr.  Toombs,]  who  seldom  disguises  mat- 
!  ters,  said,  he  desires  to  have  announced  as  the 
I  policy  in  this  country,  that  we  shall  -take  the 
tropics,  I  mean  on  this  side  of  the  world. 

Mr.  TOOMBS.  It  is  true — the  whole  of  it. 

Mr.COLLAMER.  Exactly.  The  very  found¬ 
ation  for  this  first  step  produces  the  necessity 
for  every  other  you  are  to  take  in  the  tropics; 
hut  the  value  of  it,  as  a  possession,  is  yet  prob- 
]'  lematical.  When  we  look  at  the  people  of  the 
|j  tropics;  living  in  nakedness,  unsheltered  and  un¬ 
housed,  and  see  them  live  in  idleness  and  prosper 
in  growth  of  numbers,  we  cannot  but  at  once 
turn  our  attention  to  how  this  is  done.  We  find 
them  furnished  with  the  spontaneous  productions 
of  the  earth  for  their  support.  There  are  fruits 
and  nuts  all  the  year  round;  and  half  an  acre  of 
untilled  banana  will  support  one  hundred  men 
for  a  year.  What  does  this  intimate?  That  they 
were  made  to  live  in  idleness,  and  the  country 
was  made  with  fruits,. to  enable  them  to  do  it. 

I  [Laughter.]  It  is  the  indication  of  Providence; 

and  but  a  very  slight  degree  of  philosophy  will 
1  confirm  it.  Man  never  grows  there,  lie  never 
takes  that  position  which  should  entitle  him  to 
i  be  a  member  of  a  free,  popular  Government.  He 
never  was  and  he  never  can  be,  l  care  not  whether 
lie  be  white  or  black. 

r|  But,  Mr.  President,  there  is  something  more 
than  that,  that  leads  me  to  this  conclusion  and 
j|  confirms  me  in  its  correctness;  and  that  is,  those 


18 


West  India  Islands  have  been  possessed  for  al¬ 
most  three  hundred  years;  they  have  been  pos¬ 
sessed  by  all  the  principal  leading  Powers  o*f 
Europe:  England,  Denmark,  Holland,  Belgium, 
France',  Portugal,  Spain— I  will  not  say  cer¬ 
tainly  as  to  Portugal;  I  am  not  sure  of  that — have  j 
possessed  them.  They  have  been  possessed  by 
people  of  all  races,  and  how  have  they  kept  them  ? 
and  how  cultivated  them  ?  Wholly,  exclusively,  j 
with  African  labor.  I  agree  entirely  with  the  , 
honorable  Senator  from  Louisiana,  that  that  is  so ; : 
perhaps,  it  must  be  so. 

Well,  Mr.  President,  you  have  had  them  freely 
supplied  for  more  than  two  hundred  years,  with¬ 
out  the  propriety  of  it  being  in  the  least  ques¬ 
tioned  by  any  Christian  nation,  with  labor  from 
Africa.  I  will  state,  in  all  moderation,  that  there 
have  been  carried  to  those  islands  from  Africa,  four 
times  as  many  Africans  as  all  the  people  that  are 
now  in  them.  Is  it  not  a  tropical  region  ?  Yes. 
Does  it  not  produce  spontaneous  sustenance  for 
man?  Yes.  Why  have  they  not  thrived  there  ? 
Why  has  their  supply  to  be  so  constantly  re¬ 
newed  ?  They  have  been  labored;  they  have  been 
worked.  I  do  not  charge  that  all  these  Christian  I 
people  have  labored  them  excessively  and  im¬ 
properly.  It  is  not  their  interest  to  do  it.  Sir, 
that  result  jumps  with  the  conclusion  which  I  be¬ 
fore  stated:  they  were  never  made  to  live  within 
the  tropics  and  labor.  The  thing  is  a  failure. 
How  does  this  contrast  with  the  existence  of  do¬ 
mestic  slavery  in  this  country,  outside  of  the 
tropics,  and  in  the  temperate  zone?  Do  they  not 
multiply  here?  Certainly.  It  is  not  the  race  that 
runs  out;  it  is  the  country;  it  is  the  climate.  It 
is  not  the  treatment  so  much.  People  do  not  de¬ 
stroy  their  slaves  wantonly  anywhere,  to  any  | 
very  great  extent,  probably.  There  are  some 
cruel  unreasonable  masters,  no  doutt;  but  they 
are  limited  in  number. 

What  is  the  doctrine  I  deduce  from  this?  It  is- 
this:  the  experiment  of  slave  labor,  for  the  culti¬ 
vation  of  the  tropics,  in  the  hands  of  ail  the  peo- 1 
pie  who  have  thus  far  tried  it,  is  a  failure;  and,  j 
unless  you  accompany  it  with  a  constant  re-sup¬ 
ply  from  Africa,  it  always  must  be  a  failure;  and 
therefore,  the  suggestion  that  we  should  under¬ 
take  this  business  upon  ourselves,  for  the  purpose  j 
of  carrying  through  a  successful  experiment  in  I 
that  country  and  in  our  way,  has  all  the  physical 
laws  of  human  existence  and  the  indications  of 
Divine  Providence  against  it.  Though  I  do  not 
suppose  what  1  should  suggest  to  our  southern 
brethren  will  receive  much  consideration,  I  hum¬ 
bly  submit  to  them  whether  it  is  advisable  to  cul¬ 
tivate  these  new  attachments  for  new  countries, 
and  every  now  and  then  be  disturbing  our  domestic  j 
peace  and  threatening  to  get  a  bill  of  divorce  and 
to  displace  those  relations  which  will  enable  us, 
as  a  Christian  people,  to  get  along  as  we  are,  j 
quietly. 

Mr.  President,  as  to  the  mode  of  obtaining  these  J 
countries — I  mean  Central  America,  and,  if  you  j 
please,  Mexico — do  you  not  perceive  that  one  of 
the  objects  which  the  southern  people  entertain  1 
is  this  very  thing:  how  is  it  to  be  done?  The  j 
President  evidently  indorses  their  view.  He  sends 
in  his  message  here  recommending  to  us  that  he 
be  clothed  with  power  to  establish  military  posts  \ 
in  Chihuahua  and  Sonora.  I  hardly  think  that 
has  been  responded  to  by  any  committee  in  this  i 


body,  as  yet;  how  far  it  has  been  in  the  other 
H  ouse,  I  know  not.  That  is  one  of  the  means. 
What  is  the  rest?  The  next  thing  is  his  annual 
message,  and  then  another  message  following  it, 
urging  and  indorsing  it,  that  the  Senate  shall  take 
care  about  the  order  of  their  business,  and  so  to 
do  it  that  they  shall  take  up  the  recommendation 
he  made  in  the  beginning.  What  is  that?  The 
truth  is,  as  he  says,  that  our  poor  little  weak 
neighbors  down  south  of  us  are  constantly  ma¬ 
rauding  upon  our  people,  invading  their  rights, 
violating  their  personal  liberties,  depriving  them 
of  their  property,  they  are  a  sort  of  gang  of  out¬ 
laws  upon  us.  It  seems  we  have  no  good  neigh¬ 
bors,  especially  if  they  are  weak  ones.  Now, 
what  is  to  .be  done  with  them?  The  President 
asks  of  us  to  invest  him  with  power — and  a  bill 
is  now  before  us  for  that  purpose — to  use  the  force 
of  the  Army  and  Navy  of  the  United  States  in 
procuring  redress  for  such  a  violation.  The  bill 
before  us  does  not  provide  anything  in  relation  to 
making  defense;  it  is  not  to  defend  our  people 
that  that  bill  is  introduced.  It  commences: 

“  Whereas,  the  President  of  the  United  States,  in  dis¬ 
charge  of  the  duty  imposed  on  him  by  the  Constitution, 
‘  from  time  to  time  to  give  to  the  Congress  information  of 
tli e  state  of  the  Union,  and  recommend  to  their  consider¬ 
ation  such  measures  as  he  shall  judge  necessary  and  expe¬ 
dient,’  has  informed  Congress  that,  by  reason  of  the  dis¬ 
tracted  and  revolutionary  condition  of  Mexico,  of  certain 
of  the  States  of  Central  America,  and  occasionally  of  those 
in  South  America,  as  well  the  property  as  the  lives  and 
liberties  of  American  citizens,  peaceably  and  rightfully 
within  their  respective  limits,  are  subjected  to  lawless  vio¬ 
lence,  or  otherwise  placed  in  peril,  by  those  claiming  to  be 
in  authority,”  &c. 

By  way  of  a  long  recital  and  preamble.  Then 
we  come  to  the  act: 

“  That  whenever  it  shall  be  made  to  appear  to  the  Pres¬ 
ident  that  any  citizen  or  citizens  of  the  United  States  have 
been  subjected,  within  the  limits  of  any  of  the  States  afore¬ 
said,  and  without  commensurate  offense  on  their  part,  to 
any  act  of  force,  on  the  part  of  those  claiming  to  be  in  au¬ 
thority  therein,  affecting  the  life  or  liberty  of  such  citizen 
or  citizens,  and  the  case,  in  the  opinion  of  the  President, 
demands  on  his  part  the  interposition  hereinafter  provided, 
it  shall  be  lawful  for  the  President  to  use  the  land  and  naval 
forces  of  the  United  States,  or  such  part  of  them  as  he  may 
deem  requisite,  in  such  way  as,  in  his  judgment,  may  be 
most  effectual  by  force  within  the  country  so  offending,  to 
give  full  and  adequate  relief  and  protection  to  any  citizen 
or  citizens  of  the  United  States  so  injured  or  imperilled, 
and  at  his  discretion  to  obtain  redress  for  any  wrongs  so 
done:  Provided ,  That  the  President  shall  report  to  Con¬ 
gress  (if  in  session  forthwith,  or  if  in  recess  at  its  first  meet¬ 
ing  thereafter)  whatever  may  be  done  by  him  at  any  time 
in  execution  of  this  act:  And  provided  further,  That,  as 
soon  as  the  object  shall  be  obtained,  in  any  case  where  the 
provisions  of  this  act  shall  be  carried  into  execution,  the 
land  and  naval  forces  so  used  shall  be  withdrawn.” 

Now,  how  could  such  an  act  furnish  protection 
to  anybody  ?  It  is  only  when  the  man  has  been 
violated  in  his  person  or  liberty,  and  makes  a 
complaint  to  the  President,  or  the  President  is  in¬ 
formed  of  it  in  some  way,  and  he  believes  that 
that  case  calls  for  force  for  the  purpose  of  getting 
redress,  not  for  defense — he  cannot  defend  him 
from  it;  it  is  after  the  violence  has  taken  place 
that  the  President  has  then,  if  in  his  judgment  it 
requires  it,  the  use  of  force,  and  he  is  hereby  au¬ 
thorized  to  use  force  to  procure  redress.  I  would 
ask  whether  that  does  not  clothe  the  President,  in 
any  case  of  supposed  violence  complained  of  in 
Mexico,  south  of  us  down  to  Venezuela,  to  use 
the  Navy  and  Army  of  the  United  States,  by 
force,  to  procure  redress  ?  Who  is  to  decide  when 
he  gets  redress  ?  Most  unquestionably  he  must 


19 


decide  it  for  himself.  If  he  does  not  secure  re-  |j 
dress,  he  may  retain  possession  of  the  country  j 
until  he  does  procure  redress.  That  is  the  bill. 
Now,  to  my  mind,  that  bill  is  made  and  shaped 
— it  took  its  conception  in  the  mind  of  the  Pres-  j 
ident — as  an  instrumentality  to  be  given  to  him,  i 
by  which  to  take  possession  of  these  weak  coun¬ 
tries  for  the  purpose  of  acquisition.  It  certainly 
clothes  him  with  all  the  power  necessary  for  that. 

I  consider  it  part  and  parcel  of  this  same  plan, 
which  is  entertained  for  this  same  purpose,  in 
support  of  these  same  southern  views. 

Mr.  President,  the  Constitution  provides  that 
Congress  shall  declare  war.  What  is  war?  I 
say,  forcible  occupation  of  any  part  of  any  coun¬ 
try  by  armies  is  war.  You  need  not  qualify  it  by 
saying  it  is  an  act  of  war,  that  it  is  hostility,  or 
something  of  that  kind — it  is  war.  Sir,  when  the  j 
Emperor  of  Russia  took  possession  of  the  princi¬ 
palities  of  Moldavia  and  Wallachia  with  a  mili-  j 
tary  force,  merely  on  the  ground  claimed  to  give 
protection  to  the  Greek  Church,  all  Europe  de¬ 
clared  that  war  existed.  They  made  no  more 
declarations.  It  was  prosecuted  as  a  war,  and  ; 
terminated  as  a  war,  after  all  its  scenes  of  blood.  ! 
When  Mexico  sentan  army  across  the  Rio  Grande 
they  were  driven  out,  after  the  battles  of  Palo 
Alto  and  Resacadela  Palma;  but  the  act  they  did 
was  to  come  over  with  an  army,  to  cross  the  Rio  ; 
Grande  into  a  country  which  they  claimed;  and 
what  was  done?  Our  Congress  declared  that  war  1 
existed  by  the  act  of  Mexico.  So  we  ourselves  |i 
have  indorsed  it,  that  the  occupancy  of  any  part  | 
of  any  country  by  a  military  force  is  war.  Now, 
sir,  I  have  merely  this  to  say:  when  the  Consti¬ 
tution  says  that  Congress  shall  declare  war,  I 
take  it,  it  necessarily  implies  this:  that  no  war 
shall  exist  in  this  country  by  the  act  of  the  func¬ 
tionaries  of  this  Government  unless  Congress  has 
passed  upon  the  constitutional  causes  of  that  war. 
When  power  is  given  to  them  to  declare  war, 
there  is  given  to  them,  and  to  them  only,  the 
power  to  judge  whether  there  is  occasion  for  a 
war;  and  it  necessarily  follows  that  if  any  war  ex-  : 
ists  in  this  country,  not  declared  upon  us  from 
abroad,  but  by  the  act  of  this  country ,  if  war  ex¬ 
ists  by  any  other  instrumentality  than  the  declar¬ 
ation  of  Congress,  it  exists  unconstitutionally. 

The  people  of  this  country  had  been,  long  be¬ 
fore  the  adoption  of  their  form  of  Constitution, 
the  colonists  and  descendants  of  the  people  of 
England.  They  had  lived  under  a  Government  I 
where  the  discretion  of  the  king  could  involve  ' 
the  nation  in  war  when  he  pleased;  they  had 
had  enough  of  that;  and  accordingly,  in  the  Con¬ 
stitution,  they  carefully  reserved  the  power  to 
make  war  to  be  alone  in  Congress.  When  it  is 
said  that  really  our  people  would  be  better  pro¬ 
tected  abroad  if  it  was  known  that  the  Presi¬ 
dent  could  at  once  use  force  and  make  war  when 
he  pleased,  that  those  Governments  would  be 
more  careful  in  the  treatment  of  our  citizens,  what 
does  that  mean  ?  Why  it  means  this:  a  monarch-  | 
ical  form  of  Government  with  the  power  of  war 
in  the  hands  of  the  Executive,  is  a  desirable  Gov-  i 
ernment,  better  than  ours.  It  is  a  power  needed, 
and  it  should  be  had,  in  the  Executive.  Sir,  ! 
the  Constitution  is  not  so;  the  people  thought 
otherwise  when  they  made  it.  But  it  is  said  the 
President  can  involve  this  nation  in  war  when¬ 
ever  he  pleases,  in  the  exercise  of  his  diplomatic 


t 


power;  he  has  nothing  to  do  but  to  send  an  in-  j 
solent  correspondence  to  a  foreign  nation  and  in¬ 
volve  the  nation  in  war.  Because  the  President 
may,  by  abusing  the  power  that  he  has'  make  a 
war,  is  a  miserable  argument  that  we  should  give 
him  the  right  to  make  war  when  he  pleases  with¬ 
out  abusing  anything.  If  he  abuses  his  diplo¬ 
matic  power  for  such  a  purpose,  he  may  be  im¬ 
peached.  If  you  tell  him  he  may  use  his  discre¬ 
tion  about  going  to  war  when  one  of  our  men  is 
imprisoned  in  Mexico,  he  can  go  to  war  and  can¬ 
not  be  impeached.  It  is  no  reason,  because  he  has 
the  power  by  abusing  his  diplomatic  functions  to 
involve  this  nation  in  war  and  subject  himself  to 
an  impeachment,  that,  therefore,  you  shall  give 
him  the  power  to  make  war  so  that  he  shall  do  it 
without  impeachment. 

This  bill  does  give  him  that  power.  It  says 
that,  when  in  his  opinion  it  shall  be  necessary  to 
use  force,  he  may  do  it.  Heretofore,  when  diplo¬ 
macy  had  done  all  its  duty,  had  exhausted  all  its 
arts,  the  Executive  presented  the  case  to  Con¬ 
gress,  saying,  “  I  have  exhausted  all  my  powers, 
and  I  have  exhausted  my  patience;  do  with  it 
what  you  please.”  That  is  the  theory  of  our 
Government.  When  General  Jackson  had  pros¬ 
ecuted  fyis  claims  against  France,  and  had  brought 
them  to  a  termination  by  their  standing  out  and 
neglecting  and  refusing  to  pay  as  they  agreed,  his 
patience  became  exhausted:  what  did  he  do?  Ask 
for  power  to  take  that  and  all  other  cases  into  his 
hands,  and  that  he  judge  whether  to  use  force  or 
not?  Not  at  all.  He  presented  it  to  Congress, 
and  all  the  evidence  with  it.  Now  Congress,  on 
such  an  occasion,  may  take  a  variety  of  different 
courses.  The  case  may  be  one  in  which  Con¬ 
gress  may  think  it  proper  .to  authorize  reprisals. 

It  may  be  one  in  which  they  think  that  another 
form  of  diplomacy  should  be  used  about  it,  more 
correspondence  be  opened,  a  new  minister  be  sent, 
or  more  patience  exercised.  That  is  all  matter 
for  Congress,  left  to  them  by  the  Constitution 
with  great  prudence  and  care,  and  which  ought  to 
be  exercised  in  the  same  spirit.  But  this  bill  pro¬ 
poses  to  leave  it  either  to  the  judgment,  taste,  or 
caprice  of  the  Executive,  to  judge,  in  any  one  par¬ 
ticular  case,  and  every  particular  case,  whether, 
in  his  opinion,  force  should  be  used;  and  if  so,  to 
use  it.  Congress  is  never  to  pass  upon  the  case 
at  all.  It  is  never  to  be  presented  to  them.  They 
have  never  to  exercise  their  judgment,  opinion, 
or  discretion,  about  it.  Sir,  this  is  a  most  extraor¬ 
dinary  stretch  of  the  claim  of  power  in  the  hands 
of  the  Executive.  In  my  estimation,  it  never  could 
have  been  called  for  but  for  the  purpose  of  being 
used  in  the  spirit  in  which  it  is  asked;  and  that 
is,  in  the  spirit  of  domination  and  power;  the  ex¬ 
ercise  of  the  spirit  of  acquisition  and  lust  of  con¬ 
quest  and  dominion,  for  the  gratification  of  those 
people  of  the  South  who  desire  it. 

The  honorable  Senator  from  Louisiana  very 
eloquently  described  to  us  the  condition  of  the 
West  India  Islands,  and  the  havoc  which  he  said 
had  been  produced  by  the  attempt  at  emancipa¬ 
tion,  and  the  introduction  of  coolies,  and  other 
abortive  efforts  of  that  kind;  and  he  says  the 
danger  is  that  the  whole  of  that  fertile  region  of 
the  tropics  will  be  entirely  desolated,  unless  we 
take  it  and  introduce  our  system  of  slavery.  To 
aid  us  further  in  that,  he  proceeds  to  describe  to 
us  the  tyranny  inflicted  on  that  people.  First, 


20 


I  having  informed  us  that  the  slave-owners  in  Cuba,  |j 
for  nearly  two  hundred  years,  have  been  using 
up  African  slaves,  and  coining  them  into  sugar, 
molasses,  coffee,  tobacco,  and  cigars,  at  the  rate 
of  some  sweeping  amount,  so  that  twenty  or 
thirty  years  suffice  to  carry  off  the  whole  mass  of 
them — such  is  the  cruelty  and  severity  with  which 
slavery  is  conducted  in  that  country — he  then 
tells  us  how  much  these  very  slave-owners  are 
domineered  and  tyrannized  over  by  the  power  of 
Spain.  He  then,  I  take  it,  addresses  this  nation 
now  to  come  to  the  rescue.  This  is  addressed  to 
the  whole  United  States — the  people  of  the  free 
States — to  come  to  the  rescue.  What  is  it?  He 
seems  to  assume  that  it  is  our  mission  upon  this 
earth  to  undertake  a  great  crusade  to  right  the  ; 
wrongs  of  Cuba,  and  especially  to  relieve  those  | 
cruel  and  domineering  men  who  coin  the  blood  of  , 
Africans  into  sugar  to  relieve  themselves  from  j 
the  oppressions  of  Spain.  Are  they  not  a  strange 
people  to  appeal  to  us  for  such  help  ?  Is  it  pos¬ 
sible  that  gentlemen  can  use  an  argument  of  that 
kind  with  any  idea  that  it  will  reach  the  hearts  of 
the  northern  people  ?  Do  they  mean  to  say  to 
our  people,  “  we  want  you  to  make  slavery  per¬ 
petual  through  all  the  West  India  Islands  and  the 
tropics,  and  help  the  masters  from  being  in  any 
way  frustrated  in  this  design  by  any  foreign  coun¬ 
try  ?”  The  eloquence  of  the  Senator  from  Louisi¬ 
ana  for  such  a  purpose  is  almost  equal  to,  and  al¬ 
most  as  reasonable  as,  the  eloquence  of  Peter  the  i 
Hermit,  when  he  preached  the  crusades  of  the 
middle  ages.  Sir,  we  will  respond  to  nothing  of 
that  kind.  We  do  not  believe  these  men  entitled 
to  our  help.  They  have  manifested  no  such  char¬ 
acter  as  lays  foundation  for  any  claim  upon  our 
humanity;  nor  does  the  great  purpose  for  which 
he  asks  our  aid,  address  itself  any  better  to  our 
assistance. 

It  is  assumed  here,  as  I  think,  that  Cuba  will 
consent  to  all  this;  that  they  desire  to  be  annexed 
to  us.  Where  do  we  find  evidence  of  that  ?  Gen¬ 
tlemen  seem  to  suppose,  because  we  like  our  insti¬ 
tutions,  because  we  like  our  forms  of  popular 
government,  that,  therefore,  they  would  desire  it? 
Now,  there  is  no  quarreling  about  tastes — de  gas- 
tibus  non  est  disputandum.  Do  you  believe  that; 
the  Cubans 'really  desire  it?  Why,  sir,  more; 
than  half  of  their  slaves  now  are  those  bozal  ne¬ 
groes  brought  from  Africa  contrary  to  law,  since 
1817.  Do  you  really  believe  they  want  a  Gov¬ 
ernment  put  over  them  that  would  say,  you  shall 
not  hold  these  people  that  you  obtained  contrary  1 
to  law?  Not  they.  They  desire  no  such  thing. 

There  is  another  topic  on  which  I  desire  to 
make  some  remarks  in  this  connection.  Gentle¬ 
men  say  that  the  Island  of  Cuba  commands  the 
commerce  of  the  Mississippi.  I  do  not  believe  it. 
There  is  nothing  in  it  at  all;  but  I  have  a  word  to 
say  on  that  topic,  inasmuch  as  they  view  it  in 
that  light.  One  of  those  sentiments  entertained, 
against  which  the  honorable  Senator  from  South 
Carolina  labored  with  his  people,  was  this  desire 
of  separation,  secession,  division  of  the  Union. 
Among  our  great  securities  against  such  a  result, 
was  this  very  river  Mississippi.  We  have  be-  j 
lieved  that  while  the  Alleghany  Mountains  stood 
where  they  do,  and  while  the  Mississippi  flows 
where  it  does,  a  division  of  this  Union  isimprac-  ! 
ticable — absolutely  impracticable.  The  whole  of 
the  head  waters  of  the  Mississippi  and  its  branches  I 


are  inhabited  by  the  people  of  the  free  States. 
There  never  was, 'and  never  will  be,  a  successful 
commercial  people  upon  the  face  of  this  earth, 
that  have  the  outlet  and  the  inlet  to  their  commerce 
in  the  hands  of  a  foreign  nation.  It  never  can  be 
endured.  Our  first  settlement  upon  the  Ohio,  when 
the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  river  was  in  the 
hands  of  Spain,  was  broken  up;  at  least,  it  did 
not  progress  any;  but  the  moment  Spain  refused 
to  renew  her  treaty,  they  threatened  to  go  down 
there  and  take  possession  of  that  country,  even 
in  that  infancy  of  the  Government.  Now,  sir, 
the  natural  outlet  of  all  that  region  drained  by 
the  Mississippi  and  its  upper  tributaries,  the 
whole  region  beyond  the  Ohio,  Kentucky,  west¬ 
ern  Virginia  on  each  side,  or,  if  you  please, 
Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michigan,  Wisconsin, 
Iowa,  and  Minnesota,  is  by  the  way  of  the  Mis¬ 
sissippi. 

This  is  the  great  channel  of  commerce,  and  al¬ 
ways  must  be.  I  can  merely  say,  if  the  slave 
States  of  this  Union  form  a  Confederacy,  and 
choose  to  make  a  separate  nation  by  themselves, 
they  cannot  retain  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi 
unless  they  take  those  western  States  in  with 
them;  and  then  they  will  be  in  the  same  condi¬ 
tion  of  division  and  conflict  that  they  are  now. 
Those  States  will  of  course  take  possession  of  it; 
and  that  divides  your  supposed,  and  projected 
kingdom  utterly  in  two. 

It  may  be  that  s<Wie  of  those  southern  gentle¬ 
men  have  the  idea  that  if  they  get  us  to  buy  Cuba, 
when  they  separate  they  will  have  the  key  to  the 
mouth  of  the  Mississippi;  and  inasmuch  as  many 
of  them  say  they  are  going  out  any  way,  without , 
any  conditions  to  it,  without  a  perad venture,  it  is 
certainly  a  very  modest  request  for  us  to  advance 
money  to  obtain  that  country,  to  enable  them  to 
be  strong  and  sustain  themselves  as  a  nation,  to 
the  entire  destruction  of  the  western  commerce, 
whenever  they  shall  separate  and  set  up  for  them¬ 
selves.  They  can  hardly  expect  that  we  should 
really  respond  to  that,  and  aid  them  in  getting  it 
for  that  purpose,  to  encourage  them  to  make  a 
division;  yet  that  seems  to  be  the  project  which 
is  now  presented  to  us. 

Mr.  President,  I  have  some  other  subjects  stand¬ 
ing  in  various  relations  to  this  topic,  but  I  am  sen¬ 
sible  that  I  have  occupied  very  much  time,  and 
infinitely  more  of  the  attention  of  the  Senate  than 
I  expected.  I  will  say,  however,  that  in  my  own 
opinion  it  is  advisable  for  us  to  attend  to  the  im¬ 
provement  of  our  internal  condition.  We  ought 
properly  to  estimate  the  blessings  we  possess. 
We  ought  to  enable  ourselves  to  realize  its  value. 
It  contains  great  and  unoccupied  regions.  Take 
a  single  State  for  instance,  like  Illinois;  say  it  has 
a  million  and  a  half  of  inhabitants  in  it  now.  It 
is  agreed  o"n  all  hands  that  there  is  not  more  than 
one  eighth  part  of  its  surface  that  has  the  mark  of 
cultivation  upon  it.  That  country,  then ,  is  capable 
of  sustaining  a  population  of  twelve  million  people 
as  well  as  what  it  does  what  they  have  there,  and 
each  million  to  occupy  as  much  ground  as  those 
now  there  do,  and  never  disturb  them  at  all;  and  yet 
wre  are  wanting  land.  Mr.  President,  when  that 
shall  fill  up  with  the  enterprise  and  intelligence  of 
this  people,  they  will  be  a  people  in  all  the  relations 
of  life  better  fitted,  better  housed,  better  clothed, 
and  better  instructed, than  they  noware.  So,  too, 
will  be  the  whole  condition  of  our  country,  as 


21 


well  of  other  States  as  that.  Let  us  build  the 
pyramid  of  our  greatness,  not  on  shifting  sands, 
not  upon  a  constantly  changing  basis,  by  enlarg¬ 
ing  its  borders  and  going  for  expansion;  but  let 
it  rise  in  unity,  symmetry,  and  beauty,  making 


a  nation  governed  by  principles,  not  of  fillibuster- 
ing,  not  of  coveting  other  possessions,  but  gov¬ 
erned  by  principles  which  shall  command  our 
respect,  our  patriotism,  and  love,  at  home,  and 
the  respect  of  nations  abroad. 


\ 


i 


i 


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V  • 


